Cignetti decries ‘noise’ after Dukes end their legal threat
James Madison has one remaining regular-season football game, and the Dukes are apparently resigned to their fate after two official appeals and a threatened lawsuit failed to convince the NCAA to grant them immediate bowl eligibility.
JMU is in the second year of a transition from the Football Championship Subdivision to the Football Bowl Subdivision, and transitioning programs are ineligible for immediate bowl eligibility and their conference championship game.
JMU made two official appeals to the NCAA to lift the ban, but both were denied. Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares had engaged a law firm to pursue litigation, but the school early this week decided against that.
The school’s administration has been roundly criticized on social media this week, and football coach Curt Cignetti released a statement Friday in support of President Jonathan Alger and athletic director Jeff Bourne.
“We knew the transition rules when we entered FBS,” Cignetti said in the statement, according to multiple media outlets.
“We attempted to appeal the rule, twice! My confidence in our leadership’s decision making has never wavered. … I personally find the current ‘noise’ out there ridiculous and counter-productive to our daily efforts to improve all of Athletics.”
The decision not to pursue a lawsuit came after JMU suffered its first loss of the season last Saturday against Appalachian State. The overtime loss capped a frenzy in Harrisonburg after the broadcast of ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show” on Friday and “College GameDay” on Saturday.
“JMU’s president and senior administration, upon advice of and in consultation with the Attorney General’s office and outside counsel, decided to hold off based on the results of last week’s game and the timing involved,” the school said regarding a potential lawsuit early this week in a statement according to the Daily News-Record in Harrisonburg.
“The university is continuing to pursue all avenues to get into a postseason bowl game.”
The Dukes are ranked 24th in the latest Associated Press Top 25 poll and play at Coastal Carolina on Saturday.
JMU still can compete in a bowl game if there are not enough bowl-eligible teams to fill the available 82 spots. Whether that’s the case might be known after Saturday’s results.