Southern Miss upset Houston on Saturday, winning the Conference-USA and giving the Cougars their first loss of the season.

The win also knocked Houston out of the BCS bowl picture costing the conference millions of dollars in revenue.

As the highest-ranked team from a non-BCS conference, Houston was in line for an automatic bid for a BCS bowl. And an appearance in a BCS bowl game would have come with a $13 million payout to C-USA.

Of the $13 million, approximately $4 million would have gone to Houston. The rest would have been divided among the other 11 schools in the conference.

In the end, Southern Miss won the conference championship, but they cost themselves nearly $1 million.

A similar scenario played out last year when Nevada upset Boise State, knocking the Broncos out of the BCS picture and in turn costing Nevada and the other members of the Western Athletic Conference nearly $1 million each.

Leave it to the BCS to create a scenario where a team wins, but really loses.