James Madison is changing conferences. The American’s membership approved JMU’s application and the school’s board voted to terminate its Sun Belt membership, with both steps announced over Sunday and Monday.
The Dukes will join the American as a full member no later than July 1, 2028, with the exact date still to be set. Their remaining sports follow by the 2028-29 school year.
JMU Is Leaving From a Position of Strength
This is not a program fleeing a bad situation. James Madison is 6-0 this season under head coach Billy Napier, and since moving up to FBS it has gone 46-11 overall and 28-7 in Sun Belt play.
The Dukes went undefeated in the 2025 regular season and became the first Sun Belt team to reach the College Football Playoff. That is the best FBS transition any program has had in recent memory, and it was done in four years.
A league does not usually lose its best football program while that program is in the middle of an unbeaten season. The Sun Belt just did.
The American Gets to 15 Football Programs
With JMU, the American would field 15 football programs: 13 full members plus Army and Navy.
Fifteen is a lot. It is also the clearest signal yet that the American intends to be the strongest league outside the Power Four rather than one of several interchangeable ones. Adding the team that just made the Playoff from a rival conference is how you do that.
The Stated Reason Is About Geography and Alumni
JMU President James Schmidt framed the move around where the school’s graduates live. “Our student-athletes will compete in cities where JMU alumni are already rooted,” he said, while thanking the Sun Belt for helping position the program for the move.
That is a polite way of saying the Sun Belt’s footprint never made much sense for a school in Harrisonburg, Virginia. JMU has spent years flying to Louisiana and Alabama and Texas for conference games while the natural travel partners sat in other leagues.
What It Does Not Fix
The American is a better fit and a better brand. It is not the Power Four, and the Playoff math for a program outside the four big conferences is still brutal.
JMU already proved it can get there from the Sun Belt by going undefeated. Moving to the American probably makes the schedule marginally stronger and the at-large case marginally better, which in a 12-team field is worth real money.
The practical answer is that James Madison has done everything a mid-major can do and is now positioning itself to be the obvious call if the Power Four ever expands again. Two years is a long runway. The Dukes will spend it winning.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.