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James Madison makes final push for College Football Playoff spot with 'earned' campaign

On3 imageby: Dan Morrison12/07/25dan_morrison96

It’s always been a longshot that multiple teams outside of the Power Four could make it into the College Football Playoff. However, this season, going into conference championship weekend, James Madison had the chance to join the conversation as a second Group of Five team to make the Playoff, alongside the American Champion.

Everything went right during the weekend for James Madison. On Friday night, the Dukes added a win in the Sun Belt Championship. Then, 7-5 Duke beat Virginia in the ACC Championship Game on Saturday. Duke, being unranked, seems like a long shot to make the Playoff field, meaning James Madison could be the fifth-highest ranked conference champion, earning the automatic bid that comes with that. Still, nothing is set in stone until the selection committee comes out with its final rankings.

Ahead of the final rankings, James Madison is making a final push publicly with its “earned” campaign. They’d begin that by posting to social media shortly after the ACC Championship went final.

In the earned campaign, James Madison looked to put its resume on full display. James Madison is now sitting at 12-1, with its only loss coming to Louisville out of the ACC. That includes 11 straight wins and seven wins over bowl eligible teams.

On top of that, the Dukes chose to highlight that their defense has only allowed 16 fourth quarter points during the 11-game winning streak. James Madison is also a top-six team in both rushing offense and rushing defense. All of that amounts to a team, they believe, belongs to earn that spot in the Playoff and not get jumped in the rankings by Duke, who would have to go from unranked to ranked ahead of the Dukes, who were No. 25 a week ago.

James Madison has largely been predicted as the 12-seed. That would match them up with the fifth seed in the Playoff. Of course, Duke head coach Manny Diaz has made the case for the Blue Devils too.

“They don’t have wins like this,” Diaz said. “They don’t have a win against a team like that. That’s a big-time team right there in Virginia and — seven wins in this conference? Seven Power 4 wins. Compared to zero? That’s a playoff team. Darian Mensah might be the best damn quarterback in the country. These guys deserve to be in.”

It won’t be long before we have an answer on whether James Madison can make the College Football Playoff. The final selection committee rankings are coming out early in the afternoon on Sunday.