JMU Finalizes Contract to Play WVU at FedEx

It’s official Dukes fans, JMU will face West Virginia at FedEx Field on September 15 of next year. The news broke that this game was in the works last month, but the announcement that the contract had been finalized was just made today. The original reports in June indicated that JMU would be guaranteed $350,000 for the game and could receive up to $150,000 additional dollars through additional ticket incentives.

Now that the contract has been finalized, we’re breathing a giant sigh of relief. I’d like to say we would have handled it fine if the negotiations collapsed and the game fell through. The truth is though that such an event would have ranked pretty high on the JMU sports misery index. It wouldn’t have been on top of the list, but it would have been right up there along with the fumble against App State, the Landers injury/loss to Montana, and the entire Dean Keener experiment.

This is obviously awesome news for the Dukes. It’s a great deal for the Mountaineers as well. West Virginia is guaranteed $2.3 million dollars for the game, which according to ESPN.com is “at least $500,000 more than they’d get for a home game in Morgantown.” It also gives the Mountaineers a chance to try to expand its fanbase in the DC Metro area, an area which has no overwhelming allegiance to any single college football team. They were going to play an FCS team anyway. Now they get to play one that isn’t viewed as a pushover thanks to its win over VA Tech, generate some buzz by playing in an NFL stadium, and possibly gain a few fans in a large media market. Oh, and get paid millions to do it. It’s a no brainer.

This is an even better deal for our Dukes though. These sorts of opportunities don’t come along very often for FCS teams. Heck, lots of FBS teams never get opportunities to play in NFL stadiums like this. The truth is that despite the fact that lots of the more hard core or geeky JMU sports fans (guilty as charged) can get fired up for games against the likes of Richmond, New Hampshire, or William & Mary, the typical JMU fan doesn’t care much. The news of this game at FedEx has created a ton of buzz in the JMU community. It’s not quite the “We Beat Tech” level of buzz, but it’s up there. Trust us. We’ve had a quite a spike in page views since the rumor broke and we’re pretty sure it’s not due to any strides we’ve made with our writing (although we happen to think our CAA football previews are worth reading). So this game is a very, very big deal. If the Dukes win, it’s going to be legendary. And regardless of what happens on the field, it’s a safe bet that the tailgating will be legendary as well.