Saturday is WVU’s unusual venture to the Nation’s Capital, or thereabouts, to play a neutral-site game against a FCS school.

To briefly review the details, WVU is guaranteed $2.3 million for the game and can make an additional $200,000 in a ticket incentive that looks like it might be hard to meet. Nevertheless, WVU isn’t paying James Madison a penny and, as such, looks to clear about $500,000 more than it might for a normal home game.

I guess I’m still split on this. Losing home games isn’t much fun or fair to the home fans, but the opportunity for Oliver Luck and the university is hard to ignore, too. This is going to be a WVU weekend in a pretty important, and populated, part of the country. The Mountaineers were able to retain the media rights and sweeten the contract for the 2016 game at FedEx Field against BYU.

The Mountaineers enter in a favorable position, too, having stood still at No. 9 in the Associated Press poll and jumped to No. 8 in the coaches’ poll. James Madison is No. 5 in the FCS and probably not as good as the 2008 team that beat Virginia Tech or the 2004 team that won the national title — at least not yet. Then again, that 2004 team got on a roll as the season progressed.

That said, the Dukes can play and they’ve outeverythinged their first two opponents. Saturday saw 53 snaps, 42 points and 416 yards of offense, but also an ankle injury to their star running back.

JMU, which lost at WVU in the 2004 season, wasn’t especially sharp against Alcorn State and had to overcome its own errors as it beat the outmatched Braves. The Dukes are keenly aware of the upcoming challenge.

“We’re probably going to play the Heisman Trophy winner,” Matthews said in reference to Smith. “I’m sure he’s going to put up big numbers this year.”

Don’t expect WVU to be asleep, though. The Mountaineers were off last week and just want to play. Does’t matter who. Though the FCS hasn’t pulled a true stunner this season — sorry, Colorado — WVU has a few FCS coaches who know what’s coming, including defensive line coach Erik Slaughter, most recently of Stephen F. Austin.