James Madison’s waiver request to shorten its FBS transition from two years to one has been denied by the NCAA Board of Directors, sources told WSVA late Wednesday night.  The board decision affirmed a denial by the Division I Council as they held a meeting earlier on Wednesday.

The denial means JMU football will not be eligible to win the Sun Belt Championship and they won’t be eligible for a bowl game for the second straight season.  But there is still a way for the Dukes to play in a bowl game since it’ll be the second year of the FCS to FBS transition.  If a team in year two of the transition is able to win at least six games and there aren’t enough teams eligible to play in all the bowl games, the transitioning team would be picked ahead of any 5-7 teams in that scenario.

James Madison became the first team to transition from FCS to FBS and play a full FBS schedule in year one, and the Dukes finished 8-3 and 6-2 in the Sun Belt.  They earned a share of the SBC East title and owned the tiebreaker over Coastal Carolina, but JMU wasn’t eligible to play in the Sun Belt Championship game.

There will be much more on this story in the coming days as the news broke just before midnight on Wednesday.