HARRISONBURG, Va. — It doesn’t take long. Visit James Madison University, and you will quickly notice how eager folks are to hold doors open for one another.
Students for students. Students for professors. Locals for students.
In this college town, aptly nicknamed the “Friendly City,” if they can see you coming, they’re holding it open. Advertisement JMU ’s campus sits in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley, flanked by the Blue Ridge Mountains. Founded in 1908 as the State Normal and Industrial School for Women at Harrisonburg, it didn’t become fully co-ed until 1966 and didn’t field a football team until 1972.
It now has 22,000 students. For much of the past 25 years, the university’s evolution occurred in the anonymity of low-major NCAA athletics, including the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) — essentially the second division of college football. JMU won national titles, upset big-name opponents and invested in its teams, yet most of the achievements were far removed from the biggest and brightest stages of college sports.
Then in 2022, JMU climbed to the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and Group of 5 conference level — still looking up at the power-conference penthouse, but at least in the building — and thrived. The 2023-24 season became the Year of the Dukes. JMU football posted an 11-2 record, ranking as high as No.
18 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll and finishing with the program’s first bowl game. Men’s basketball went 32-4, a re.