JMU Quarterback Battle ‘Wide Open’ Heading Into Fall Camp

As James Madison coach Curt Cignetti stood on the stage at the Sun Belt Conference’s media day inside the Sheraton New Orleans on Wednesday afternoon, he opened the door on the Dukes’ quarterback competition as fall camp approaches.
It’s the second straight fall camp that JMU opened fall camp with a quarterback competition and this time the Dukes will be between Arizona transfer Jordan McCloud and redshirt freshman Alonza Barnett III.
Cignetti said the plan is to have McCloud and Barnett take the bulk of the first-team reps, while redshirt sophomore Billy Atkins and Wake Forest transfer Brett Griffis work with the others in practice.
“The quarterback position is wide open,” Cignetti said. “Every year we’ve been at James Madison, we’ve led the conference in scoring, and all three of our quarterbacks have been player of the year in our conference.”
Historically, Cignetti has started a veteran quarterback in his previous four years at the helm of JMU: fifth-year player Ben DiNucci and sixth-year quarterbacks Cole Johnson and Todd Centeio.
And as he talked about the quarterback competition, Cignetti added a clue to what he’d like to see from his quarterback, which follows the trend of experienced quarterbacks. But whoever will start, has to win the job.
“It sure would be nice to have some experience at quarterback going on the road week two, three and four,” Cignetti said. “Whoever plays the best in camp will be the starter.”
McCloud has started 19 games across his five seasons between South Florida and Arizona, and he threw for 3.251 yards and 23 touchdowns with a 60 percent completion percentage.
Barnett appeared in two games last fall and recorded one completion for 14 yards and four carries for 15 yards in his relief of Centeio late in games.
Dukes Focused On Winning, Not Bowl Game
During JMU’s two-year FBS transition period, the Dukes haven’t been able to compete for the Sun Belt Conference championship, but that hasn’t waned on the purple and gold’s players.
This season, as a second-year transitioning team, the Dukes will be able to play in a bowl game if there are not enough bowl-eligible teams and JMU has six or more wins.
But JMU isn’t worried about that. Instead, they just want to let that take care of itself.
“We’d like to be in it, but with the circumstances, it is what it is,” said Nick Kidwell, a preseason first team All-Sun Belt selection at offensive line. “We have 12 games and we look forward to winning 12 games and leave it in the committee’s hands once it’s all said and done.”