James Madison at Oregon: College Football Playoff players to watch, key to game

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James Madison got into the College Football Playoff thanks to Duke’s ACC title game win. 

Can the Dukes make it more than one-and-done as the biggest underdog of the first round?

[More CFP: Alabama at Oklahoma | Miami at Texas A&M | Tulane at Ole Miss]

James Madison (12-1): If you need a refresher on how the College Football Playoff teams are selected, the five highest-ranked conference champions in the CFP committee’s rankings make the field along with seven at-large teams. Since five-loss Duke was the ACC champion, James Madison was the fifth-ranked conference champion, giving the Sun Belt Conference its first-ever playoff team.

The Dukes’ only loss came in Week 2. Ironically enough, that defeat came to an ACC team. JMU lost 28-14 at Louisville before winning 11 straight games. The Dukes beat Troy 31-14 in the Sun Belt title game and had just one conference win by one score.

Oregon (11-1): The Ducks’ only loss came to the No. 1 seed in the playoff. After a 5-0 start that included an overtime win over a Penn State team that was ranked No. 3 at the time, Oregon lost 30-20 at home to Indiana. That loss made the CFP committee a bit skeptical of the Ducks at the start of November, but Oregon beat Iowa, USC and Washington over the final four weeks of the season to move up to No. 5 and the top spot among teams that didn’t play in a conference title game.

A lot of people will be seeing JMU QB Alonza Barnett III for the first time. A season ago, Barnett threw 355 passes in 12 games for 2,568 yards, 26 TDs and just four interceptions. This season, he’s 193-of-322 passing for 2,533 yards and 21 TDs but his interception total has doubled to eight.

Barnett didn’t have a great game in the Sun Belt championship. Even though the Dukes won 31-14, Barnett was just 10-of-25 passing for 93 yards with a TD and an interception. He added 12 carries for 85 yards and a TD, however, and that performance wasn’t an outlier. Barnett has 115 carries for 544 yards and 14 scores.

Oregon’s Dante Moore has completed over 72% of his passes in his first year as a starter and is positioned to be a top pick in the 2026 NFL Draft if he decides to declare. Moore is 227-of-313 passing for 2,733 yards and 24 TDs with six interceptions. Moore threw two interceptions in that loss to Indiana. Since then, he’s thrown just three picks over 145 attempts and has nine touchdown passes in that same span.

James Madison RB Wayne Knight: The redshirt junior has been one of the best rushers in the country in his first season as a No. 1 back. After getting 77 carries for 449 yards a year ago, Knight has 190 carries for 1,263 yards and has scored nine touchdowns this season.

As Troy led early in the second quarter of the Sun Belt title game, Knight put JMU ahead for good with a 73-yard TD run. He finished the game with 21 carries for 212 yards.

It was just the fourth 100-yard game of the season for Knight, but that’s a product of volume more than anything else. He’s only had one other game with at least 20 carries this season.

Oregon TE Kenyon Sadiq: The potential first-round pick in the 2026 NFL Draft is a walking mismatch. How will JMU try to cover him?

Sadiq is Oregon’s leading receiver with 40 catches for 490 yards and he’s scored eight touchdowns. Five of those TDs have come over his last five games. Against USC, Sadiq had six catches for 72 yards and two scores. A week before against Minnesota, Sadiq had eight catches for 96 yards and a TD. He can be a bit boom or bust; Sadiq has five games with two or fewer catches in 2025. But we expect Moore to be looking for Sadiq down the seam consistently against JMU.

Autzen Stadium will be the most raucous environment any JMU player has ever played in. How much of an impact will crowd noise make? James Madison has a stingy rushing defense, but it also hasn’t faced a running attack close to that of Oregon. The Dukes have given up just 990 yards rushing all season; Marshall is the only team to average more than four yards a carry. Oregon averages 5.8 yards a carry as a team as running backs Noah Whittington, Jordon Davison and Dierre Hill Jr. each average at least six yards a carry.

If JMU can slow Oregon’s run game down, then the Dukes have a chance. If Oregon can get what it wants on the ground, the bigger question won’t be if Oregon can win, but if the Ducks can cover that three-touchdown spread.

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