Louisiana Loses Low-Scoring Game to James Madison in First-Ever Matchup: Final Takeaways
Abdul Abusada • October 11, 2025
The Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns football team have now fallen to 2-4 on the season and 1-1 in conference play after losing 24-14 to the James Madison Dukes in Harrisonburg, VA. This was the first-ever meeting between the Cajuns and the Dukes.
Coming into this game, the Cajuns were 18.5-point underdogs against a James Madison team that was 4-1 on the season and ranked 4th nationally in total defense. QB Lunch Winfield made his debut collegiate start in this game after leading an impressive second-half comeback against Marshall a couple weeks ago when he replaced then-starter Daniel Beale. But while sportsbooks had JMU winning this game in blowout fashion, the Cajuns kept the game close, as neither team led by more than seven points at any point up until the final three minutes.
FINAL TAKEAWAYS
1. Lunch Winfield brought the passing game to some sort of life.
Prior to this game, UL averaged 122 yards per game through the air and only had three passing touchdowns through five games. Today, Lunch aired it out for 243 yards and two passing touchdowns on just 14 completions, coming out to a nice 17.4 yards per completion. While he did finish with a 50% completion rate (14/28), it is still an impressive stat line given that JMU came into this game ranked 8th nationally in passing yards allowed (137.4 ypg). Not to mention, this was the most yards allowed through the air by the Dukes this season (the most prior to this game was last week at Georgia State who put up 212 yards passing). JMU did not fare well today in pass defense, leaving receivers open multiple times, and Lunch took advantage of those mistakes.
That being said, there were some questionable "toss-up" throws he made that could have went either way (similar to what Jameis Winston did in NOLA), but nonetheless, there is an improvement in the passing game compared to where this team was at the start of the season. And it is not necessarily a bad thing, as Lunch appears to have faith in his receivers, and so do the coaching staff. As long as the Cajuns continue to work their craft through the air, they should be just fine for the rest of the season, assuming everyone stays healthy and this offensive line, which is banged up (and potentially lost another body for some time after starting LG Kaden Moreau left with an injury), can get some bodies back. But they are still far from perfect.
2. Tackling continues to be an issue for the Cajuns.
While this was not as big of an issue for defense as it was for special teams (particularly punt team) today, this is something the Cajuns have struggled with all season long. Not including those that may have went over my mind, there were two notable Cajuns punts today where the JMU returner broke 3+ tackles each time and gained significant yardage. We all hoped the team would use the bye week to improve wrapping-up players and tackling better, but the issues still persisted today. There was improvement, as the Cajuns defense did better with tackling and not allowing big plays after contact, per say. But overall, it has been a concerning spot all season for the Cajuns, and there were some glimpses of that yet again today.
3. Cajuns defense slowly showing improvement but still needs lots of work.
UL's defense has been on a decline all season, and as a whole came in today as statistically one of the worst in the country. Though there are some positives to take from today's game.
Prior to playing Marshall a couple weeks ago, this secondary allowed an average of only 160 yards per game through the air, which was top 25 nationally. Ever since, they have been exposed twice in a row, with big games allowed against Marshall's QB Carlos Del Rio-Wilson (258 yards) and now JMU's QB Alonza Barnett III (290 yards). However, despite the numbers saying otherwise, it looked worse against Marshall than it did today against JMU. The difference between the two is that against Marshall, receivers were consistently being left open, whereas against JMU, there was better awareness and coverage. Not to mention a big chunk of Barnett's 290 yards came from a flea flicker trick play on the opening play of the second half for a 62-yard touchdown. Still, this isn't to mention, however, that JMU was a run-heavy team coming into this game, not a passing team by any means. 63% of their total offensive yards prior to today came from their strong running attack. The Cajuns need to figure something out defensively to slow down passing games, and it undoubtedly became more concerning after allowing a run-heavy team to pass very well today. So far through two conference games, they are on pace to being one of the worst passing defenses in the country.
As far as the run game, the Cajuns showed improvement, allowing 187 rushing yards. Now, by no means is that a stat to highlight on a defense's resume. But UL came into this game ranked 6th worst in the country in rushing defense (allowing 221.6 ypg), while JMU was 10th best in rushing offense (averaging 241.6 ypg). If anything, the indications pointed towards a huge running attack for the Dukes going up against a really poor Cajuns defensive front. Prior to this game, the only time JMU ran for less than 210 yards was against a really good Louisville defense when the Dukes were limited to just 126 yards on a whopping 47 attempts. Today, even though they ran pretty well, the Dukes had to rely a lot on the passing game to move the ball, which as mentioned above, is completely opposite of what their norm is (60% of their yards today came through the air).
4. Banged up offensive line situation just keeps getting worse.
UL had three offensive linemen out for this game due to injury, and they lost another one halfway through the game as starting LG Kaden Moreau went down with an apparent leg injury. The exact diagnosis and his status for future games are still undetermined, but that now puts the Cajuns at two starting offensive linemen now potentially being out against Southern Miss (the other is RT George Jackson who was already ruled out for the game and likely to miss the rest of the season). The struggles were apparent in the game as not only were the Cajuns unable to run the ball well, only gaining 45 yards on 28 carries (QB Lunch Winfield was the leading rusher with 23 yards), but there was also lots of pressure on Lunch during pass attempts that increasingly got worse as the game progressed. Leading RB Zylan Perry was out with an injury, so he did not play.
Overall
The team is still continuing to show lots of inconsistency, and a lot of it has to do with injuries and poor execution. As mentioned earlier, this is a really good James Madison team, and this game was going to be a tough one to win in the first place. That being said, the fact that the Cajuns were able to keep the game close (only allowed 14 points through three quarters) is a huge positive and a step towards the right direction, but the team is still not where it needs to be. JMU today was flagged ten times for a whopping 102 yards, which played a big role in giving the Cajuns the great field position and scoring opportunities they had.
The Ragin' Cajuns will now fly back home to prepare for a homecoming matchup next Saturday at 4pm versus the Southern Miss Eagles in what will be the TRUE rematch of the Sun Belt Conference Championship last season (if you know, you know). We'll see how the Cajuns play against Coach Huff and QB Braylon Braxton, both of whom were at Marshall last season when the Cajuns played them in the conference title game. The Cajuns are now needing to win four of these last six games to earn bowl eligibility.
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