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JMU Is 7-0 and Still Hasn't Seen a Quad 1 Team: Your Week 8 Group of 6 Rundown
By MVPeav · @MVPeav ·
James Madison is 7-0, the last unbeaten team in the Group of 6, and I still can't tell you how good they are. Seven wins, zero against a Quad 1 opponent. The record is spotless and the résumé is a stack of games nobody's going to bring up in December.
Behind them sit six one-loss teams, and only one of the whole bunch, Boise State, is in the AP poll at all. That's the race right now: an unbeaten team nobody's been forced to respect yet, and a pack of one-loss teams that all think they'd beat them.
Thursday night at App State won't settle anything. But it kicks off a real G6 week: UTSA at Tulane, where my sims and ESPN FPI flat-out disagree, and a defense-on-defense game in Albuquerque that could knock somebody out of the one-loss club.
The G6 Power Board: One Unbeaten, Six Teams With One Loss
Quads is our résumé ranking: every win and loss gets graded by how good the opponent was and where you played them. Through week 7, the top of the G6 looks like this:
- JMU, 7-0, 19th in FBS Quads
- UTSA, 6-1, 21st
- Boise State, 5-1, 25th, and the only AP-ranked team here at No. 21
- Air Force, 5-1, 4th in the G6
The one-loss club behind JMU is six deep: UTSA, Boise State, Air Force, Liberty, NDSU and New Mexico. Six teams, one spot, and the only one of them we know for sure isn't going anywhere is the one that loses again.
My read on JMU is simple: that No. 1 is a record, not a résumé. Their two best wins are Liberty at home, 20-13, and Georgia Southern on the road, 27-24, and both of those are Quad 3 games. Seven wins and the best one is a 3-point escape in Statesboro. I'm not saying they're bad. I'm saying nobody has made them prove it.
UTSA is the opposite case. The one loss was 30-6 at Texas, which is the kind of loss I'll forgive any G6 team, and they've won five straight since. Boise State is the team the rest of the country takes seriously, and it's not close. Air Force is 5-1 with a loss to NDSU on their own field, which looks worse by the week as NDSU keeps winning.
UTSA at Tulane: The Sims and FPI Pick Opposite Sides
This is the best G6 game of the week by our ranking, and it's the one where my sims and ESPN FPI are standing on opposite sides of the room. My sims give UTSA 59% with a median score of 27-24. FPI gives Tulane 59.9% at home. Somebody is going to look silly Saturday night, and I'm fine if it's me, but let me make the case.
Tulane's offense is 133rd of 138 in success rate. That's not a slump, that's an identity. Tulane is 3-3 in Will Hall's first season, and an offense that can't string together successful plays is exactly the kind of offense my sims expect to start handing the ball over, and they do: the sims have UTSA forcing more than a turnover out of Tulane in this game against a season average of half a turnover a game. That gap, plus McCown, is the whole 59%.
And McCown is the real thing. He threw for 359 yards and 3 TDs in the 38-34 win over Navy, and UTSA hasn't lost since the Texas trip.
The case for Tulane is fair, tho. Will Hall's first season just got its signature win, 31-17 over Memphis, and that's a better win than anything on UTSA's five-game run. And UTSA can't stop the run either: they allow 199.9 rushing yards a game, 124th in FBS, which is barely better than Tulane's own 212.5. Whoever runs the ball on Saturday is going to find room. I think the better quarterback wins it anyway, just a lot tighter than UTSA's last few have been.
JMU at App State on Thursday Night
My sims give JMU 80% with a median score of 31-17, and FPI is right there with it, handing App State just 15.5% at home. I'd be shocked if this one got weird.
JMU's offense is scoring 42.9 points a game, and the turnover margin is +7, 7th in FBS. App State just lost 10-3 at home to a 2-5 Old Dominion team. Three points. At home. My sims see App State's red-zone touchdown rate cratering from 93% on the season to 52% against this defense, which is a polite way of saying the drives that end in touchdowns against the rest of the schedule end in field goals Thursday night.
I watched JMU up close when they came to Statesboro, and that one was played in the middle of a hurricane. My Eagles impressed me in that game, more than a 3-point loss usually does. But I read it as JMU taking a step back from last year, not Georgia Southern taking a big step forward. A team that's supposedly the class of the G6 should not be sweating out the last possession in Paulson in October.
A comfortable win Thursday keeps JMU unbeaten. It also does nothing for the résumé. Beating a team that scored 3 at home against Old Dominion isn't the quality win they're missing, and the pack behind them knows it.
NDSU at New Mexico: Two of the Best Defenses in FBS
New Mexico allows 10.5 points a game, 1st in FBS. NDSU allows 11.3, 2nd in FBS. Both teams are one-loss G6 contenders, and my sims think only one of them deserves to be: New Mexico 80%, median score 27-14, with FPI at 79.4% for the Lobos. When the sims and FPI agree this hard, I pay attention.
The reason is the NDSU offense, and specifically that it can't throw. NDSU is 122nd in EPA per play, and 187.3 passing yards a game puts them 114th in FBS. Against most teams that doesn't matter, because they run through you. Against this New Mexico defense, my sims chop the NDSU run game roughly in half, from 193 yards a game down to 92. Take the run away from a team that can't pass and you get 14 points, which is what the sims spit out.
The other side of it is turnovers. New Mexico is +17 in turnover margin, 2nd in FBS. That's a team that doesn't give you anything for free, and NDSU's offense can't afford to give anything either.
For what it's worth, NDSU's only loss is 13-7 at UNLV, and they beat Air Force 38-32 on the road in week 2, so the win in Colorado Springs is still the best thing anybody in this one-loss group has done. If they pull this off in Albuquerque I'll have to rethink the whole board. My sims say they won't.
G6 Storylines: JMU's Coaching Pipeline and the First-Year Guys
Billy Napier is in year one at JMU, straight off the Florida firing, and he's doing what JMU coaches do: win early and get the big schools circling. Cignetti, then Chesney, now Napier. That program has become the place you go to get your reputation back, and the Sun Belt keeps paying for it.
Two other first-year head coaches show up on this week's G6 slate. Will Hall is in his first season at Tulane, and that Memphis win gave him a real result to sell. Kirby Moore is in year one at Washington State after Jimmy Rogers left for Iowa State, and his team is 1-6 heading into Boise State, so the honeymoon is already over.
The playoff spot question gets asked every week and it comes down to the same two names, JMU and Boise State. I'll give you my call at the bottom.
Rapid Fire: Boise State and Air Force Tune-Ups, Plus Navy and Louisiana Tech
Boise State at Washington State, sims 84%, median score 29-14. Washington State's offense is averaging 5.5 yards per pass attempt, dead last in FBS, 138th of 138. Boise's one real weakness is a pass defense that allows 261.3 yards a game, and they drew the one team in the country that can't take advantage of it. Boise runs for 234.5 a game, 10th in FBS, and that's the whole game.
Air Force at Wyoming, sims 71%, median 25-17. Air Force runs for 343.0 yards a game, 1st in FBS, and throws for 64.0, 137th. You know exactly what's coming and Wyoming still has to stop it. Wyoming is 4-3 with a -7 turnover margin, and an offense scoring 18.3 points a game is not built to come from behind against the triple option.
North Texas at Navy, sims 56%, median 27-24. North Texas is 2nd in FBS in passing at 345.5 yards a game, and FPI likes them even more than my sims do, giving Navy only 33.2% at home. The reason the sims keep it close: they cut the North Texas passing game to 246 yards in this one, and Navy's run game, 298.5 a game, is the kind that eats the clock. Navy is 2-4 and -6 in turnover margin tho, and that's how a 56% becomes a win.
Old Dominion at Louisiana Tech, sims 66%, median 25-19. FPI is way more sure about it at 83.1% for the home team, and I get why: ODU's offense is last in FBS in success rate at 31%. Louisiana Tech is 4-2 with a 32-31 win over Louisiana and a 31-29 win over Army, both at home and both by a possession, which is why my sims are less confident than FPI. They win ugly, and ugly is close.
Bottom Line: Watch UTSA at Tulane, and the Sims Trust Boise State Most
If you watch one G6 game this week, it's UTSA at Tulane. The race is tight, my sims and FPI split on it, and the loser drops out of the top of the board for a while. Boise State at 84% is the game my sims are surest about, and nothing on the slate scares me for the Broncos.
Georgia Southern is off this week, sitting 3-4 with losses to Jacksonville State and JMU that both came by one score. The bye needs to be about two things: shoring up the defense, and figuring out why the offense fades as the game goes on. Both of those losses had the same shape, and I'm tired of watching it.
My gut call on the playoff spot: Boise State is the leader of the pack until proven otherwise, and the matchup with Oregon State later this season is going to be massive. JMU is 7-0 and I still don't believe the strength of schedule is there to justify the spot for a second straight year, not without some chaos in the G6. Thursday night in Boone doesn't change that. Saturday in Albuquerque and New Orleans might.