JMU Football secures bowl eligibility with win over USM

JMU football goes bowling for the second straight year. The Dukes posted six wins on the season Saturday, beating Southern Miss by a final score of 32-15. It was far from perfect, but it was enough to give the Dukes bowl eligibility in the third year of their FBS era.

JMU is 6-2 overall and 2-2 entering the bye week. With four regular season games remaining, the Dukes are still on their way to the Sun Belt East title, although they will still need some help the rest of the way. Luckily for JMU, the Dukes can look forward to at least one postseason game later this year, even if a Sun Belt Championship appearance falls out of reach.

The Dukes played in a bowl game last season, but only because there weren't enough eligible teams to fill all the bowl slots. JMU was still in the two-year transition to the FBS, which meant it couldn't gain access to a bowl without outside help. Now that JMU has full FBS eligibility, it only needed to reach the six-win mark to be bowl eligible this season. That's done.

While fans probably won't go crazy after Saturday's win — the offense looked sluggish for most of the win, a concerning trend — making a bowl game is an accomplishment. The Dukes have never won a bowl game in program history, but they will have a chance later this season.

The Dukes will learn their matchup details for the bowl games on December 8th when the bowl games are announced. Here's our official bowl game projection tracker showing where experts believe the Dukes will play this postseason.

Photo courtesy of JMU Athletics Communications