James Madison: No. 1 Seed in an NCAA Football Playoff

Shocking, we know. Not the JMU part, the ever-elusive football playoff part...

Must be the incredibly handsome mascot.

JMadU earned the No. 1 seed for the first time in the 16-team NCAA Division I Football Championships. Don’t be confused. Yes, this is a 16-team football tournament designed to determine a National Champion on the field.

The Dukes (10-1) were joined by three-time national champion Appalachian State, Northern Iowa and Montana as the four seeds in the tournament, which begins play at campus sites on Saturday. Three of the four seeds, JMU, ASU and Montana, have won national championships in the past seven years.

JMU, ranked No. 1 in the country for the past eight weeks, qualified for the tournament by winning the championship of the CAA and will take on Southern Conference runner- up Wofford (9-2) in a 3 p.m. game at the Dukes Bridgeforth Stadium in Harrisonburg.

It will be the first time the Dukes have hosted a playoff game since 1994. In their 2004 national championship run, JMU had to win three road games before taking the title win over Montana in Chattanooga, TN. It is the ninth FCS playoff appearance for James Madison.

Wofford will be making its third appearance in the FCS playoffs since 2003, its second straight and its first as an at-large team. The winner of the JMU-Wofford matchup will face either CAA runner-up Villanova (9-2) or Patriot League champion Colgate (9-2) in the quarterfinals on the following weekend.