When Mike Houston showed up at James Madison last January, he didn’t like everything he found. He saw championship upside at a Colonial Athletic Association school that could recruit and had won a I-AA national title in 2004. But he didn’t like the immediate state of the program.
How JMU ended North Dakota State’s streak and reached the title game in a new coach’s first year
New coach Mike Houston inherited a two-time playoff team and turned it into a national title team.
“When we took over, you had a very divided locker room” Houston told SB Nation. “You had a situation where the philosophy was, on offense, they were gonna go as fast as possible. They were gonna try to snap the ball as quickly as possible. They were gonna try to beat people with a finesse offense and speed and just really try to score as fast as they could.
“There was not a whole lot of emphasis put on defense, and we inherited a defense that was ranked near the bottom in the country. You inherited a football team who was not a very tough football team.”
The job came open for Houston after Everett Withers went 9-4 and 9-3 in his two years, then left for the head coaching job at FBS Texas State.
Houston inherited a team that had been objectively successful, no matter its style of play. But he wanted it to be different.
Houston conducted what he describes as an “extremely physical, demanding spring practice” and later “a very, very physical fall camp.” He sought to work off of the same philosophy he’d worked under in his previous jobs, as the head coach at Lenoir-Rhyne and then The Citadel.
“We’re all in this together,” Houston said. “This is not an offensive football team. This is not a defensive football team. This is a football program, a football family, and we’re all gonna invest.
“It’s gonna be an open-door policy around the coaches’ offices, with the coaches. We’re gonna be involved in players’ personal lives. We’re gonna make sure they graduate. We’re gonna try to help them prepare for their future. It’s gonna be the way I feel like a college football program should be.”
Houston’s JMU did suspend seven players during the playoffs, and they won’t play in the championship game. Two of those players also missed the Dukes’ last game. JMU hasn’t stated a reason for the suspensions. The NCAA conducts drug tests during the playoffs.
JMU had player suspensions and dismissals under Withers, but a source said the Dukes had no failed NCAA drug tests during Withers’ two years in Harrisonburg, which yielded an 18-7 record. Withers, through Texas State, declined comment for this story.
The Dukes are in the FCS Football Championship on Saturday against Youngstown State (noon ET, ESPN2). JMU enters as a top-five rushing team in the country (5.7 yards per carry). Houston’s offensive emphasis is the power run game, but the passing offense led by quarterback Bryan Schor is the most efficient in the FCS. The offense scores 48 points per game, second in the country, and has been mostly unstoppable.
The defense has given up 22 points per game (20th in the country) for the year, but just 13 on average over the last five games. Last year’s team gave up 29 per game.
“To be honest, I thought it’d take me two to three years to get it turned around,” Houston said. “I really did, because it was such a drastic change from the way the philosophy was before me. But I truly credit the older players in that locker room — the senior class, the older juniors — because since Day 1, it probably took ‘em a little while, you know, to get, ‘He’s serious about this stuff. He’s not gonna sit here and dog-cuss us. He’s not gonna berate us. He’s gonna coach us enthusiastically, but he’s gonna care about us and put his arm around us, and we’re gonna do this together.’”
To get here, JMU already had to slay a dragon.
The Dukes’ semifinal victory came at North Dakota State. It ended the Bison’s unprecedented run of five national titles in a row, making it one of the biggest sports upsets of 2016. The Bison had been nearly unbeatable in Fargo and completely unbeatable in the playoffs.
I tried to get Houston to admit fear. He recalled his team’s 5:15 a.m. spring practices, on frost-covered turf in Northern Virginia, and a specific conversation the Dukes had a half-year before the season even started.
“We talked about, you know, ‘We are going to build a team that has a strong, physical running game, that plays good defense, that plays great in the cold weather, and we’re gonna build a team that’s built to beat a team like North Dakota State,” Houston said. “Because teams that play great defense, run the ball, thrive in cold water, unified teams, those kind of teams are the ones that win playoff games and win late in the year.’ Our philosophy was, ‘We’re gonna build a team like that.’ By the time we made it to [the semifinal], we had already become that team.”
NDSU plays in a dome, but the point stands. Schor threw for three touchdowns and 242 yards. The Dukes ran for 5 yards per carry. The Bison tied for their lowest scoring output of the year at 17 points.
“I think if you ask any of our kids before winning that game, not a one of them would have flinched,” Houston said. “Every kid and coach believed we were gonna go in there and win.”
Now, to cap it off.
National titles are good for prestige, glory, pride, and the like.
There’s one more dimension to it for JMU. A Dukes win would be the best imaginable career capper for a senior class that’s played under three different coaches: Mickey Matthews, Withers, and now Houston.
“Would it help us recruiting? Absolutely. Will it help us with the expectations of the future? Absolutely,” Houston said. “But the biggest thing is just those young men, who have kind of gotten an unfair shake on their college football career, for them to have an ending like that, I think that’s really the special thing.”
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