Last Updated on October 20, 2026 2:56 pm
BOONE — App State will host one of the last unbeaten teams in college football on Thursday night, when James Madison comes to a sold-out Kidd Brewer Stadium for a nationally televised game that opens the university’s Family Weekend.
Kickoff between the Mountaineers (4-2, 1-1 Sun Belt) and the Dukes (7-0, 4-0) is set for 7 p.m. on ESPNU.
James Madison is one of six remaining unbeaten teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision, and the only one of the six that is not ranked in the top 10 of this week’s polls. The Dukes are receiving votes in both the Associated Press and coaches polls. The last time App State faced an unbeaten opponent this late in a season was Nov. 18, 2023, when the Mountaineers beat 18th-ranked James Madison 26-23 in overtime in Harrisonburg.
Under ninth-year head coach Billy Napier, who is 69-35 in his career, James Madison is scoring 42.9 points per game — third-most in the country — and allowing 16.0, which ranks 19th. The Dukes average 461.0 yards of total offense and 223.7 rushing yards per game, and they have thrown just one interception all season.
Mountaineers arrive off a comeback
App State comes in off its best offensive night of the season against an FBS opponent, a 35-32 win at Coastal Carolina last Friday. The Mountaineers trailed 24-14 at halftime and then scored the first 21 points of the second half.
Sophomore running back Jaquari Lewis ran for four touchdowns in Conway — the most by a Mountaineer since Cam Peoples scored five in the 2020 Myrtle Beach Bowl — and was named the Sun Belt’s Offensive Player of the Week on Monday. Lewis now has eight rushing touchdowns, tied for the conference lead and tied for 11th nationally, along with 346 rushing yards.
As a team, App State set season highs against an FBS opponent in points (35), total yards (516) and rushing yards (253). The third quarter has been the Mountaineers’ best period all year: they have outscored opponents 47-15 after halftime breaks.
A question at quarterback
Senior quarterback Malachi Singleton leads the Sun Belt and ranks among the top 30 nationally at 238.2 passing yards per game. He has completed 113 of 169 attempts for 1,429 yards with seven touchdowns and two interceptions.
Singleton has been playing through an injury since the Old Dominion game and missed the second half at Coastal Carolina. Junior Henry Hasselbeck stepped in and rushed 21 times for 125 yards — the second-highest single-game total by an App State quarterback in the program’s FBS era — while completing 9 of 12 passes for 112 yards and his first career touchdown, a 31-yard throw to Sam Pickett III.
Hasselbeck, who spent 2024 and 2025 at UCLA, is the son of former NFL quarterback Matt Hasselbeck. Head coach Dowell Loggains was the passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach for the Tennessee Titans in 2011 and 2012, when Matt Hasselbeck played there.
What James Madison brings to The Rock
Running back George Pettaway is the centerpiece. He has 767 rushing yards and seven touchdowns, averages 109.6 yards per game and 7.04 yards per carry, leads the Sun Belt in rushing by more than 300 yards and has gone over 100 yards in four consecutive games.
The most dangerous player on the field may be receiver and return specialist Michael Scott, whose 685 combined return yards lead the nation. Scott averages 38.8 yards per kickoff return and 20.0 yards per punt return, with two punt return touchdowns, and his 138.0 all-purpose yards per game rank 12th nationally.
James Madison’s defense has forced a takeaway in six straight games, with cornerback DJ Kelly’s four interceptions leading the Sun Belt. Kicker Morgan Suarez is ninth nationally in scoring at 10.3 points per game.
App State’s defense has been the difference
The Mountaineers lead the Sun Belt and are tied for seventh nationally with nine interceptions, and rank in the top 20 with 11 total takeaways. Those turnovers have been worth 34 points this season, compared to nine points off turnovers for App State’s opponents.
Defensive lineman Caleb Sandstrom has 5.0 sacks, tied for 16th in the FBS and tied for second in the Sun Belt. Linebacker Colton Phares, a preseason All-Sun Belt pick who tied his career high with 12 tackles against Old Dominion, is on watch lists for the Bednarik Award and Nagurski Trophy. Linebacker Alex Mitchell has forced two fumbles this season, giving him eight in his career counting stops at Chattanooga and Middle Tennessee — tied for seventh among active NCAA defenders.
The secondary will need a sharper night than it had at Coastal Carolina, where App State allowed 298 passing yards and three touchdown throws.
A season of close games — and strange weather
Other than the 55-3 season-opening win over Maine, every App State game this season has been a one-score game inside the final two minutes.
Two of those games were shaped by weather. A lengthy delay for heavy rain and frequent lightning pushed the Sept. 19 Charlotte game to a 9:30 p.m. start — the latest start to a home game in program history — and it ended at 12:32 a.m. Three weeks later, heavy rain and gusty winds from the remnants of Hurricane Isaias turned the Sun Belt opener against Old Dominion into a defensive slugfest. That game was scoreless at halftime, and App State led 3-2 entering the fourth quarter before the Hampton Roads visitors scored the only touchdown in a 10-3 win.
A long series, a lopsided rematch
Thursday is the 21st meeting in a series that dates to 1980 and includes two FCS playoff games. App State leads 14-6 overall and 8-3 in games played in Boone, where the Mountaineers won the most recent meeting at The Rock 34-20 on Senior Day in November 2024.
The two programs have split four meetings since James Madison joined the Sun Belt in 2022. The most recent one was the most lopsided of the stretch: a 58-10 loss in Harrisonburg last November in which App State was shut out in the first half for the first time since 2017.
What’s at stake
James Madison sits alone atop the Sun Belt East at 4-0 in league play, with Georgia Southern next at 2-1 and App State and Georgia State both 1-1. A win Thursday would put the Mountaineers squarely back in the division race and end the Dukes’ perfect season; another conference loss would leave very little room over the final five games.
It is the first of three straight Thursday night games for James Madison, which hosts Troy on Oct. 29 in a rematch of last season’s Sun Belt Championship.
Familiar faces
App State wide receivers coach Justin Harper spent 2024 and 2025 on James Madison’s staff in the same role, helping the Dukes win last season’s Sun Belt title.
Singleton’s path to Boone also runs through his head coach. He committed to an Arkansas staff that included Loggains in 2022, but Loggains left for South Carolina before Singleton enrolled. After Loggains was introduced as App State’s head coach in December 2024, Singleton visited Boone four days later, then chose Purdue and played there in 2025 before entering the transfer portal again and committing to App State.
How to watch and listen
Kickoff is 7 p.m. Thursday at Kidd Brewer Stadium. ESPNU has the broadcast, with Taylor Zarzour on play-by-play, Jeff Woody as analyst and Michella Chester on the sideline. Radio coverage comes from the App State Sports Network with Adam Witten, Brandon Turner and Matt Present, carried on flagship 97.3 FM in North Wilkesboro along with affiliates in Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Johnson City and Hendersonville, and streamed at appstatesports.com.
The game is sold out. App State has sold out its football season tickets for a fifth consecutive year, and 19 of the Mountaineers’ last 21 home games have been sellouts. App State is 128-27 at Kidd Brewer Stadium since 2003 and 46-25 all time on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU.
