Arriving on the James Madison campus in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia in 1999, Jeff Bourne noticed the 12,500-seat football facility on the grounds, which had just started playing the sport a little over 25 years prior.
He somehow foresaw the future.
He disregarded the weak three-win season of the preceding year, scoffed at the notion that a school that only began admitting men in 1966 could be a player in the “pigskin,” and dismissed the financial strain that establishing a premier football program would bring.
And then the athletic director did something even bolder than daring to dream big: he waited. Collegiate sport is not meant for the patient; it is the ultimate game of grab and go, dominated by those who desire success tomorrow and the financial rewards of their efforts yesterday. Planning for those who prefer to lag behind, the tortoise is outpaced by the hare.
Nevertheless, as the College Football Playoff kicks off this weekend, James Madison is not just a participant; the university’s impact is felt across the sport.
Meanwhile, Chesney’s predecessor, Curt Cignetti, who coached JMU’s first FBS football game—a win over Middle Tennessee State—awaits in Indiana, preparing for the Rose Bowl with a Heisman Trophy winner and a nationally top-ranked squad.
And all of this happened because the university did what nobody else seems willing to do—it took its time.
“It’s truly incredible, and it wasn’t always simple,” Bourne, who retired in 2024, shared in an interview with CNN Sports. “Especially when your peers are moving ahead. Your fans don’t want to hear ‘be patient.’ They say they are tired of waiting. You need to swim somewhat against the stream. But I think it was worth it.”
Slow Build for a Powerhouse
There was, in fact, always a strategy. When Bourne arrived from Georgia Tech, he, along with the then-university president Dr. Ronald Carrier—and shortly after, Linwood Rose—planned to develop the football program not just as a revenue generator, but as a way to make the campus even more appealing to students.
That’s how the whole program began. Established as a women’s teaching college in 1908, JMU first welcomed men in 1966, and upon arriving five years later, Carrier, the university president, believed adding football would help the school shift its public perception.
Head Coach Challace McMillin effectively drafted his roster from class registration lines. The Dukes played their inaugural game on Oct. 7, 1972, losing 0-6 to a junior varsity squad from Shepherd College in West Virginia.
By the time Bourne arrived on campus, things were somewhat better. James Madison had moved to I-AA (now FCS) in 1980 and had even earned a couple of NCAA invitations in the late 1990s.
But the real surge came with the arrival of Mike Magive. Hired concurrently with Bourne, Matthews guided the Dukes to a I-AA championship in 2004, giving both the administration and fans a taste of what was possible.
That number continued to rise despite the hardships of success. JMU cut 10 sports in 2007, largely to meet Title IX obligations. The fact that the school sponsored 28 varsity teams—seventh among all Division I institutions—did not make the cuts any less painful. Bourne refers to these as the program’s “dark times,” although he understood then and still believes that for the department to thrive, the school had few alternatives.
Six years later, coinciding with the release of the feasibility study for an FBS transition, JMU dismissed Matthews. Then the most successful coach in program history, he became a casualty of both his own achievements and the school’s view toward the future. Largely due to Matthews’ success, JMU spent $62 million to expand the stadium to 25,000 seats, yet his team’s inability to change fortunes on the field—only one playoff appearance in the last five seasons—made that large stadium feel more like an unfulfilled promise than a sign of hope.
Matthews’ departure marked the beginning of a coaching cradle in Harrisonburg, Virginia—JMU got exactly what it desired in terms of on-field success but proved unable to retain coaches on the sideline.
Everett Withers lasted two years before moving to Texas State, which had recently entered FBS, and Mike Houston spent only three impressive seasons (another title and a runner-up finish) before taking on another ascending program at East Carolina, which had moved to the American Athletic Conference.
Effectively, the Dukes had become FCS elite, contending for or winning titles, spending over $10 million on football, expanding the on-campus stadium, and even attracting ESPN GameDay to the grounds.
Bourne and the university team unapologetically leveraged enrollment growth to fund athletics. By 2010, student fees constituted 84% ($23.9 million) of the department’s revenue, making JMU one of the most heavily subsidized athletic departments in the nation. That figure continued to climb—$27 million in 2012, surpassing $41 million in 2019 and $55.5 million the previous year, according to the Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Database.
“We were certainly concerned about the fee,” Bourne now reflects. “But communicating with parents and students—the sport was a vital component of the student experience. During my entire tenure at JMU, I never encountered an adamant group of people who were against it. They more or less grasped that success required it here.”
The figures confirm this; even before JMU’s FBS move, the stadium regularly reached capacity, with the student body making up over a third of the 22,000 spectators in attendance.
Sticking to the Strategy
But they remained an FCS program, staying put while—starting in 2008—16 other schools moved to the higher payouts and visibility of FBS membership. Still, JMU waited.
JMU could have moved sooner. Many conferences extended invitations, but instead of striving to keep up with the Joneses, Bourne studied his peers. He observed Appalachian State move to the Sun Belt and succeed, and Old Dominion stumble.
“There was immense pressure to move forward, but we observed from a distance,” Bourne noted. “We looked at what went well and what did not. It would have been easy to make the leap and then come back and say, ‘Oh, wait. Do we have the resources to sustain it?’ We chose to be deliberate.”
Their most crucial deliberation came in 2019 when Bourne hired Cignetti.
There was no perfect moment for it, but when JMU finally leaped, it was into a fire.
The Dukes joined FBS right as NIL and revenue sharing emerged, exacerbating the financial gulf between their standing and that of their major peers.
“We centered on what was essential,” states Bourne. “What truly matters? What will genuinely help us change things? That’s where we directed our resources.”
In 2023, JMU’s long journey to FBS finally yielded fruit. The Dukes finished the season 11-1, broke into the AP Top 25, and even navigated a strange rule that could have rendered them bowl-ineligible, earning a spot in the Armed Forces Bowl after bowl committees effectively ran out of qualified teams.
“Patience,” Bourne says, “can pay off.”
Lightning in a Bottle
It is easy to claim JMU caught lightning in a bottle with Cignetti—only the bolt struck twice. When Cignetti departed for Indiana, Bourne returned to his coaching roster, seeking someone with a successful head coaching resume.
Bob Chesney is not a clone of Cignetti; Cignetti took 50 years to get any chance at a head coaching role; Chesney earned his shot at 33. But they are cut from the same cloth, hailing from working-class Pennsylvania towns where their fathers were high school coaching stalwarts.
“That probably speaks to the type of culture and individual we believe can succeed here,” Bourne comments. “We interviewed many fine coaches, but if you look at Curt and Bob, beneath the exterior is what we want our JMU football coach to embody. They are very similar in their approach.”
Hiring Chesney was one of Bourne’s final acts. He retired in May 2024 and then stood on the sidelines while Chesney achieved the seemingly impossible: he took what Cignetti built and elevated it further.
Though critics might laud the inclusion of a Group of Five team in the playoff, JMU earned it via a 12-1 record and a Sun Belt title.
“While it’s awkward and a bit unprecedented, we felt we could set an example,” said Athletic Director Matt Roan, who succeeded Bourne. “If you put the right priorities in place—not just for this team, but for this program, while safeguarding its future—we can pull this off.”
The main query, of course, is: what is JMU’s future? It is a pleasant thought to be a cradle for coaches, but that only implies that your achievements produce turnover. Chesney’s departure marked the fifth head coaching vacancy in 11 years.
Roan deviated somewhat from the script with Chesney’s replacement, hiring Billy Napier, who had been dismissed from Florida earlier in the year. Napier is another coach’s son, though his origins are in Tennessee, and—while he gained experience as head coach at Sun Belt member Louisiana—his resume is largely filled with stops at much more prestigious football institutions: Clemson, Alabama, Arizona State, and finally, Florida.
“It was a major hire, no doubt,” Roan admits. “We needed to be completely certain that the person we selected could continue our upward trajectory. This isn’t about two or three playoff appearances. We aim to be a program that is perpetually relevant year after year.”
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