He may not want to, but Southeastern Louisiana safety Donnell Ward-Magee can’t help dwelling on how the Lions’ last two seasons ended.
A 73-28 pounding at Montana in a 2019 FCS second-round playoff game and a 55-48 loss in a de facto playoff play-in at Southern Illinois last spring in which SLU gave up an eye-popping 804 yards will do that to you, especially when you started both games.
But, if anything, Ward-Magee, a junior who prepped at St. Augustine, is spurred on by those memories as Southeastern (9-3) goes into its second-round playoff game at third-seeded James Madison (10-1) Saturday on the Dukes’ home field in Harrisonburg, Virginia (1 p.m., ESPN+).
The SLU-JMU winner meets the winner of Friday’s late-starting game between Eastern Washington and Montana in next week’s quarterfinals.
“That wasn’t us, or at least it wasn’t what we wanted to be,” Ward-Magee said of those two previous finishes. “But we’re better because of it, and we’re not going to let it happen again.”
For SLU, doing so will take a maximum effort on offense, defense and special teams.
James Madison is No. 2 in the FCS in total defense, allowing 252.4 yards-per-game. The Dukes allow 15.4 points-per-game, ninth in the FCS.
Offensively the Dukes are led by quarterback Cole Johnson, the Colonial Athletic Association offensive player of the year and Walter Payton Award finalist. Johnson has thrown for 30 touchdowns with just two interceptions.
Those numbers along with the stingy defense helped the Dukes achieve an FCS-best plus-17 turnover margin.
And when the JMU offense does stall, it can call on kicker Ethan Ratke, who holds the NCAA All-Division career records for field goals made (100) and points by a kicker (525). The fifth-year senior leads the FCS in field goals this season with 28.
If that weren’t enough, the Dukes have won 11 straight playoff games at Bridgeforth Stadium where they average almost 25,000 fans, making it an intimidating situation for visiting schools like SLU which are used to playing in front of crowds one-fourth that size.
Plus, JMU’s national seeding earned the Dukes a first-round bye, which Coach Curt Cignetti said was a welcomed relief for a team which has played 20 games since February.
And if that weren’t enough, after this season, JMU will be transitioning into the FBS and the Sun Belt Conference. That makes this the final playoff run for a program which has won two national titles and has been in the playoffs for the past eight years, including a 28-20 loss North Dakota State in the 2019 championship game and a 38-35 semifinal loss to eventual champion Sam Houston in last spring’s COVID-impacted season.
“Everybody on the team wants a ring,” said JMU senior defensive end Bryce Carter. “I think the younger guys are even more fired up about it than the seniors because they know this is their last chance.”
Small wonder SLU is a 15-point underdog and Lions coach Frank Scelfo calls JMU the most-complete team Southeastern has faced.
“They’ve got great personnel across the board and schematically they’re sound on both sides of the ball,” he said. “The quarterback takes care of the ball, so their turnover ratio has skyrocketed.
“You can’t say much more about their defense than where they’re ranked, and they’ve got a kicker with 100 field goals. There are no weaknesses because they do a great job of executing in all phases of the game.”
But, as they say in boxing, Southeastern has a puncher’s chance.
That’s because the Lions lead the FCS in scoring (47.2 points-per-game), total offense (561.7 yards-per-game) and third-down conversion percentage (53.6), a category in which the Dukes are third-against.
Quarterback Cole Kelley, the reigning Payton winner and again a finalist, has thrown for 4,727 and 42 touchdowns. Kelly also is the team’s top rusher with 480 yards and 16 TDs.
And if comparative scores from the past mean anything, Southeastern opened the 2021 spring season with a five-point loss to the same Sam Houston team that later eliminated JMU while also defeating Villanova, the only team to beat JMU this season, in the 2019 playoffs.
“You’ve always got to believe in yourself, and this team believes in itself,” Kelley said. “Our offense can put pressure on anybody, but we just can’t afford mistakes that cost us scoring opportunities.”
Certainly the SLU defense has to be feeling better about itself than it did a few weeks ago after a last week’s 38-14 opening-round playoff victory against Florida A&M in which the Lions blanked the Rattlers through the first three quarters, allowing just 131 yards to that point.
That followed losses to Incarnate Word and Nicholls State in which the Lions gave up a combined 100 points and 1,267 yards, costing them the Southland Conference championship and a likely national seeding.
“We prepared better than we had all year and communicated better in the game, and you saw what happened,” Ward-Magee said. “With our offense, we just need to make more stops and maybe get some turnovers and let them do the rest.
“This is a big stage, but we’re not going to let it be bigger than we are. We want to be playing next week and the week after that.”