Game notes
- Time and date: Saturday, December 20 at 7:30 p.m. ET
- Network: TNT/HBO Max/truTV
- Location: Autzen Stadium — Eugene, OR
- Spread: Oregon (-21)
- Over/under: 47.5
- All-time series: No previous matchups
- James Madison last bowl: 2024 Boca Raton Bowl, 27-17 win over WKU
- Oregon last bowl: 2024 Rose Bowl, 41-21 loss to Ohio State
Setting the scene
It’s the unlikely pairing of the Ducks and Dukes. Two programs located 2,800 miles apart on opposite sides of the country are now associated with one another for a College Football Playoff matchup.
The
Oregon Ducks are still vying for that elusive first national championship, but the team is familiar with playing on the grand stage, qualifying for national title games in 2010 and 2014 and drawing the No. 1 seed in the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff last season. James Madison won championships at the FCS level, but the Dukes are brand new to the big leagues, joining as recently as 2022. Despite constant coaching transitions, JMU’s winning ways are sustaining at the FBS level, winning its first-ever Sun Belt title to become the league’s first representative in the CFP.
Oregon enters as the heavy favorite in this never-before-seen matchup, getting the luxury of host duties at Autzen Stadium. But an upset-hungry JMU team didn’t back down from any competition all year and wants to prove that it has the mettle to compete for a national championship at the highest level.
James Madison Dukes outlook
James Madison (12-1, 8-0 Sun Belt) rides the second-longest win streak in college football at 11, sitting two games short of undefeated Indiana’s 13-game streak. The Dukes took their lone setback Week 2 at Louisville, watching a 14-6 third quarter lead evaporate into a 28-14 loss. Since that September Friday night, JMU’s locker room knows nothing but celebration. The Dukes were fairly dominant all season, winning 10 games by 10+, seven games by 20+, and five games by 30+, owning the sixth-best scoring differential vs. FBS competition in 2025.
Leading this playoff journey is second-year head coach Bob Chesney. While he already accepted a job at UCLA for 2026, Chesney will coach the remainder of this playoff run before former Louisiana and Florida head coach Billy Napier takes the reins. This situation is nothing new to JMU, as Chesney already led the team to a Sun Belt Championship Game win over Troy after initial reports confirmed he was off to Los Angeles.
James Madison broke 50 points four times this season behind the nation’s 10th-ranked scoring offense, contributing 37.3 points per game. The Dukes thrive on a slower-paced offense which primarily thrives on the ground. They are fifth nationally with 246 rushing yards per game, relying primarily on the QB-RB duo of Alonza Barnett III and Wayne Knight to propel the offense. Knight, the Sun Belt’s leading rusher at 1,263 yards, is fresh off a career-high 212-yard explosion in the Sun Belt title game. The explosive 5’7”, 190 pound back — averaging 6.6 per carry — looks to sustain his momentum on the West Coast, riding a streak of five-straight 85+ yard rushing games. Knight also doubles as the team’s receptions leader, toting 37 catches for 379 yards as a frequent checkdown option.
Barnett assists Knight in the run game as the team’s second-leading rusher, picking up 544 yards and a team-best 14 touchdowns. As a passer, the second-year starter doesn’t typically explode for 300 yards — only reaching that total vs. Appalachian State — but he plays effective football to maneuver this offense. Barnett never tossed multiple picks in a game all year and boasts a touchdown to interception ratio of 21-to-8 entering the playoff.
Barnett’s wide receiver corps doesn’t have one dominant prevailing option, but Landon Ellis leads the bunch as the lone All-Sun Belt selection. Ellis contributes a team-high 541 yards and five touchdowns, while Nick DeGennaro and Braeden Wisloski are among the other downfield options for a team that ranks top 20 nationally in yards per completion.
But against this commanding Oregon front, JMU’s biggest offensive question is, how does the o-line hold up? Four of five starters qualified for All-Sun Belt including First Team right tackle Pat McMurtrie. The Dukes blocked exceptionally for the run most of the year — although this unit struggled to hold firm in the lone defeat vs. Louisville, allowing six sacks and averaging 2.7 yards per run.
However, the other side of the trenches is James Madison’s most polished position group. The Dukes are 10th in the FBS with 36 sacks this season, and the movement is primarily defensive line-led. Defensive end Sahir West won Sun Belt Freshman of the Year honors, and he stamped the conference championship win with a strip sack in the fourth quarter, which went for a defensive touchdown. West leads the group with 7.0 sacks, but Xavier Holmes and Aidan Gobaira are other key sources of pressure on a forceful d-line.
Also producing frequent first level stops is Sun Belt Defensive Player of the Year Trent Hendrick. The middle linebacker owns 96 tackles and six tackles for loss in a standout 2025 campaign, reaching double-digit stops in four different contests this year. Combining Hendrick and the defensive line, JMU ranks second in the FBS in run defense by surrendering 76 yards per game — holding opponents to under 2.5 yards per attempt.
It’s not like JMU was much worse on the back end, ranking 12th nationally in fewest passing yards allowed at 172. The Dukes are one of three FBS defenses, along with Toledo and Utah, to hold quarterbacks to a sub-50 completion rate. Justin Eaglin (4 interceptions, 8 pass breakups) and DJ Barksdale (2 interceptions, 12 pass breakups) were among the defensive backs most essential to this rampant success.
So what are flaws of a team this dominant? Against Louisville, the Dukes never allowed a sustained touchdown possession, but instead, they gave up two 60+ yard touchdowns in a brutal final 24 minutes of action. Additionally, JMU is actually negative in the turnover differential at -1, coughing up the ball 16 times in 13 games. Those are aspects Chesney and Co. look to improve on as the three-touchdown underdogs prepare to shock the world in Eugene.
Oregon Ducks outlook
Oregon (11-1, 8-1 Big Ten) is back in the familiar place of the College Football Playoff, making its third appearance overall and its second-straight in the 12-team model. The Ducks bowed out quickly in the 2024 Rose Bowl to Ohio State, but they’ve only lost one matchup since — an October home contest to current No. 1 Indiana. Dan Lanning and the Ducks receive homefield advantage for this matchup, becoming the first school west of the Central Time Zone to host a CFP matchup.
Oregon dominated most of its competition this year, ranking fifth — one spot above JMU — in scoring margin vs. FBS opponents at +21.3 per game. The Ducks withstood close ones at Penn State and Iowa, but the other nine wins on their schedule were quite seamless.
The Ducks’ high-flying offense is ninth in the FBS in scoring at 38.2 points per game and 13th in yardage. Oregon prefers to get things done on the ground, and it does so with an impressive stable of running backs. Sixth-year senior Noah Whittington leads the charge with 774 yards, but true freshmen Jordon Davison and Dierre Hill Jr. offer ample support, totaling 535 and 481, respectively, in this balanced attack. All three are quite explosive, each exceeding 6.0 yards per carry with Hill’s 8.2 ranking atop the team. When it’s goal line time, Davison is usually the primary option as the 6’0”, 236 pound running back has bulldozed his way to a team-high 13 rushing touchdowns. Merging all the moving parts, Oregon is the fifth-best rushing offense in the FBS at 5.8 yards per attempt.
Dante Moore occasionally showcases mobility, but the second-year Duck is primarily known for his reputation as an efficient passer. Among quarterbacks with 300 attempts, Moore is third in the country in completion percentage at 72.5, and he never finished a game below 60 percent all year — making for an interesting matchup with a JMU passing defense that regularly holds quarterbacks under 50 percent. As one expects, that efficiency also equates to a lack of interceptions, and the redshirt sophomore delivered 24 scores to six picks. However, his only game with multiple interceptions (Indiana) served the team’s lone defeat.
Like James Madison, Oregon does not have a single 600-yard receiver. Also like JMU, the Ducks’ receptions leader is not a wide receiver. Tight end Kenyon Sadiq, a finalist for the John Mackey Award, collected 40 receptions for 490 yards and a team-best eight touchdowns in the regular season, using his athletic 6’3”, 245 pound frame to become a walking mismatch on the gridiron. Malik Benson, Jeremiah McClellan and TE2 Jamari Johnson were among Moore’s other preferred options in an Oregon offense which looks significantly different from last year’s Rose Bowl squad. There’s also Dakorien Moore and Gary Bryant Jr. — two starters that missed significant time in November due to injuries — and both are slated to return Saturday night.
Although Oregon gained a reputation in the 2000s and 2010s as a skill position school, the 2025 Ducks are best in the trenches. All three interior offensive linemen — guards Emmanuel Pregnon and Dave Iuli and center Iapani Laloulu — earned All-Big Ten honors. With this firepower, Oregon is one of three finalists for the Joe Moore Award, given to the nation’s best o-line. The unit surrendered the sixth-fewest tackles for loss in the FBS, while keeping Dante Moore upright on a regular basis. However, pass protection went awry in the Ducks’ lone defeat as Moore took six of his 12 sacks of 2025 vs. Indiana.
Oregon’s defense is unquestionably a force to be reckoned with, especially up front. The Ducks are eighth in scoring defense (14.8 points allowed) and fourth in scoring defense (252 yards allowed), and it’s all built on a foundation of pressure. Matayo Uiagalelei, Bear Alexander, and A’Mauri Washington form a sizable, athletic defensive line, and edge rusher Teitum Tuioti complements that trio perfectly, capitalizing in the backfield with a team-high 7.0 sacks.
Middle linebacker Bryce Boettcher is the chief run-stopper in this group, racking up 104 tackles and four tackles for loss as a Second Team All-Big Ten selection. But as great as Oregon’s run defense numbers are, its pass defense metrics are even better. Only two teams give up fewer aerial yards than the Ducks’ 144 per game, and Oregon offers eight players with at least four pass breakups. Free safety Dillon Thieneman and cornerback Brandon Finney Jr. are the all-conference talent manning this deep back-end, hoping to create more takeaways to improve upon the +8 margin this season.
Prediction
The oddsmakers predict a comfortable Oregon victory, so what does James Madison need to do for an upset bid? The Dukes need to rely heavily on their front to produce stops and prevent the breakaway runs. Wisconsin did this fairly well in late October, limiting the Ducks to three punts and a mere seven points at halftime. In James Madison’s toughest game all season against Louisville, the defensive front certainly showed its mettle, but the Dukes lost in other areas they can’t afford to mess up against a very complete Oregon team.
JMU will need balance offensively, and that starts with getting Wayne Knight in rhythm against a relentless Oregon defense. The Dukes likely won’t be able to create many advantages in the passing game against the Ducks, given the pressure applied to Alonza Barnett III and the lack of time for routes to develop. Thus, JMU needs those Knight breakaway runs and some turnover fortune to thrive in this hostile environment. Shortening the game and limiting possessions will help too — another takeaway JMU can apply from Wisconsin’s somewhat noble performance in Eugene.
But overall, Oregon possesses the explosive playmakers, the advantages in the trenches, and a domineering passing defense, forming a perfect recipe to thrive in this playoff environment. The Ducks win handily, claiming their first CFP victory since winning the first-ever CFP game 11 years ago.
Prediction: Oregon 35, James Madison 13
