Heading into Week 14 of the 2025 College Football season, James Madison University was already guaranteed to be playing in the Sun Belt Championship Game. However, the pressure was still very much on for the Dukes as they tried to stay relevant in the College Football Playoff conversation.
With the help of PFSN’s College Football Playoff Meter and the College Football Playoff Predictor, let’s examine James Madison’s chances of making it to the CFB Playoff after their Week 14 win.
What are James Madison’s Playoff Chances?
Following their Week 14 win over the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers, the PFSN College FPM gives James Madison a 36.8%% chance of making it to the College Football Playoff.
The only route open for the Dukes is to make the playoff is as one of the five highest-ranked conference champions in the CFP Selection Committee Rankings. Despite being 10-1 entering Week 14, James Madison is not currently ranked and therefore has no chance to make it as an At-Large team.
Our simulations indicate that James Madison wins the Sun Belt Championship 76.7% of the time. The Dukes will face the Troy Trojans at home next weekend. However, even if the Dukes finish at 12-1 with a Sun Belt Championship, they are far from a lock to make it to the College Football Playoff.
The first thing James Madison has to do is win the Sun Belt. If they lose in the championship game, then they would lose any claim to a playoff spot. Once they win, they are really dependent on how other results fall.
That is because Tulane is currently ranked 24th in the selection committee rankings, making it the highest-ranked Group of Five team right now. James Madison could certainly climb into the top 25 if it wins the Sun Belt Championship; if Tulane also wins this week and next, it would likely still be ranked higher.
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Things get more interesting if Tulane were to lose in either of the next two weeks. We currently have no information on how the selection committee ranks the other Group of Five teams relative to one another.
We can almost certainly rule out any teams from the Conference USA, MAC, Pac-12, and Mountain West from being in consideration for one of the five highest-ranked conference winner spots. They simply don’t have the strength this season, and every conference champion will have at least three overall losses.
The expectation is that if Tulane stumbles, the main threat for James Madison comes from the American. Firstly, there is a good chance that the team that wins the American Championship Game will beat Tulane. That would be a win against a ranked team on their resume, as well as a conference championship.
The most likely options for that to be are North Texas (11-1) or Navy (9-2). North Texas’s only loss came against South Florida, which the committee had ranked highly enough to consider a couple of weeks ago. Meanwhile, one of Navy’s two losses came against the number 10 team in the country (Notre Dame), and they beat South Florida when they were a ranked team.
As things stand, if Tulane were to lose, we have no idea who the “next team up” might be for the CFP selection committee. The committee has ranked two teams from the American this year, so they clearly believe that to be the best conference. That would indicate if North Texas and James Madison were both to finish 12-1 with a conference championship, North Texas would get the nod.
James Madison’s best chance among the most likely outcomes in the American will be for Tulane to stumble this week, and then Navy to beat North Texas next week. That would leave James Madison and Navy in the conversation. That gives James Madison a fighting chance compared to if either Tulane or North Texas wins the American.