BARBER: Dukes launch into critical stretch run with convincing win

By Mike Barber
JMUSports.com correspondent

HARRISONBURG, Va. – The eye black that all but covered Eric O'Neill's face during Saturday's James Madison win over Georgia State had been washed off by the time he walked into the postgame press conference.

The senior defensive lineman had left his celebratory dance moves on the field at Bridgeforth Stadium.

But the passion O'Neill has for the game and his team was still evident.

After a two-sack performance in the Dukes' 38-7 victory, O'Neill revealed his mindset during the team's open week that led up to Saturday.

"Have I given enough. Have I done enough?" O'Neill said he asked himself as he reflected on the first two thirds of the season. "We're going to play as hard as we can and hopefully every game turns out like this."

For the second time this year, JMU emerged from an open date and played impressive football.

Seven weeks after turning an extra week of preparation into a road win over North Carolina, Bob Chesney's bunch followed a weekend off with a thorough beating of the visiting Panthers.

Now, the Dukes hope that win will be the launching point for a big finish to the regular season.

"We're trying to use this as momentum," senior linebacker Taurus Jones said. "We're going to try to enjoy it, but we've got to get back to work. … It's great that we got a win. We're going to try to build on it and keep going."

JMU goes into its stretch run still in play for the Sun Belt East crown and still able to reach 10 regular-season victories for a second straight year.

The Dukes are a game back in the East Division standings, trailing Georgia Southern and Marshall and tied with rival Old Dominion. JMU has already lost to Georgia Southern. It plays at ODU this weekend and, after visiting Appalachian State, finishes the regular season at home against Marshall.

With road wins in Norfolk and Boone, N.C., the division title could very well come down to the Nov. 30 contest against the Thundering Herd.

Last season, JMU beat Marshall and ODU, but lost in overtime to App State, its only regular-season defeat of the year.

Saturday, in all three phases of the game, the Dukes looked more like the juggernaut of last season.

"It was really exciting to see tonight what we're able to do and we're just foot-on-the-gas for the rest of the season," said running back Wayne Knight, who scored the first two touchdowns of his college career against Georgia State. "This is a good start for us on this four-week stretch, and being able to just continue to ramp it up. We're not finished yet."

Chesney said the team exuded a new level of confidence during the days leading up to the Georgia State game, and that elevated swagger came, in large part, from the team's quarterback, Alonza Barnett III.

"As we went through this bye week into this week of preparation you could feel it all week long," Chesney said. "It starts with No. 14."

Barnett didn't just talk the talk.

A deeper dive into Saturday's victory reveals reasons aplenty to have optimism about how the Dukes will finish the year, and that starts with Barnett.

In probably his sharpest game of the season, he went 20 for 30 for 241 yards and three touchdowns, without being intercepted and only getting sacked once.

Barnett benefited from solid protection for most of the game, an encouraging sign from a JMU offensive line that has been wobbly to date. The front-five held up even after center Tanner Morris left the game with an injury.

Defensively, the Dukes bottled up Georgia State, impressively limiting star wide receiver Ted Hurst to just one 9-yard reception and holding the Panthers to season lows in both points and yards.

The unit accomplished all that despite playing without its leader in linebacker Jacob Dobbs, who is likely to return for the final three regular-season contests, Chesney said.

That JMU (7-2 overall, 3-2 SBC) is where it is at this point is a remarkable accomplishment in its own right. Chesney took over the program in December and had to completely rebuild the roster.

For the Dukes to have reached bowl eligibility in October and kept themselves in the picture for a division crown is a testament both to the program's enduring culture – it's kept posting winning seasons despite four coaching changes in the last 11 years – and the work of Chesney and his staff.

Still, the current crop of players aren't accepting pats on the back for what they've done. They still have their eyes squarely set on what they can do.

"All of our dreams and aspirations are in front of us," Barnett said after Saturday's win. "If I know the guys in that locker room, that's not enough for us. We still have our eyes on that Sun Belt championship. We knew that, these last four games, we'd have to run the table. And we have a big one next week."

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