A tiny fraternity of college football teams will dwindle to three next fall, as Washington lines up to play, for the first time, a program in the Football Championship Subdivision.

,

and

still never have soiled their schedules with a team in The Division Formerly Known as I-AA. But hordes of the nation's 120 Football Bowl Subdivision teams have made such matchups as common as texting in traffic, with the nation's most prominent conferences leading the way.

made the games more attractive, according to analysis by The Oregonian. The matchups have increased nearly 600 percent in the Pacific-10 Conference and 358 percent in the Big Ten, even adjusting for conference expansion.

FBS schools are choosing the often lopsided games for their combination of a home game, wide profit margin and likely victory. Demand has made the games more attractive to FCS teams, too, pushing prices to as much as double what they were 10 years ago, school officials say.

"I believe there's a reason why schools are scheduling those games," UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero said. "Obviously every once in a while you'll have an upset. But for the most part, you're scheduling wins."

Revenue drives arrangements



Division-I football split into A and AA in 1978, diverging like siblings separated at birth. I-A (now FBS) thrives on national TV exposure and multimillion-dollar bowl-game payouts; I-AA (FCS) operates for mostly modest, regional fan bases and plays a lower-profile championship, albeit with an actual playoff.

College football: The rise of lower-level scheduling

A 2005 NCAA rule change allowed FBS (formerly Division I) teams to count a victory over an FCS (formerly Division IAA) team toward bowl eligibility every year, not just once every four years. Since then, such games have surged.

Conf. '04-'11

% change*

Pac-12......................... 570

Big Ten........................ 358

SEC............................. 140

C-USA........................... 83

Mountain West............... 75

ACC.............................. 57

Big 12........................... 41

Big East......................... 40

MAC.............................. 35

Sun Belt........................ 33

WAC............................ -29

Total............................. 76

*Adjusted for changes in conference size

Sources: Teams, ESPN.com

FCS programs are limited to 63 football scholarships versus the FBS's 85. FCS teams often have much more modest facilities and operate in athletic departments with far smaller budgets -- Portland State's is $11 million, for instance, versus Oregon's $78 million

For years the NCAA has allowed cross-divisional games, letting FBS teams count a victory over an FCS team toward the minimum number of wins required for bowl eligibility once every four seasons. In 2005 the rule relaxed to allow counting one such victory every season, opening the floodgates.

FCS games in the powerful

surged 140 percent since the rule change. This season all 12 SEC teams will host a lower-division opponent.

"FCS teams have more flexibility with their schedule,"

said, "which allows us to fill voids in our schedule."

The money's not bad, either.

, which plays

next fall, said he schedules the games for two main reasons: to have an extra home game and to combat skyrocketing prices for FBS nonconference teams making onetime visits.

"They'll want $900,000 or a million," Mullens said. "And we pay in the $400,000 range for an FCS opponent. That's a big difference."

Fees for FCS opponents are rising, too, benefiting those programs. Nearly one-third of Portland State's $2.4 million in football revenues this school year came from two games -- the FBS' Arizona State and Oregon.

PSU athletic director Torre Chisholm booked the games to compensate for lost revenue when the Vikings played at small, suburban Hillsboro Stadium while their home field was retrofitted for the Portland Timbers' Major League Soccer team.

Said Chisholm: "Schools that were traditional holdouts are realizing that the games have value."

Odds against close games



Cross-division matchups bring the chance of upsetting a prominent program -- ask

,

or

-- and the allure of the big time.

"We want to make sure every once in a while that our student-athletes have the opportunity to play against Tennessee, Oregon and Iowa," said Jim O'Day, athletic director at FCS team Montana.

To the dismay of some FBS fans, however, inter-divisional games are as unpredictable as a bullfight. FBS teams win the matchups 89 percent of the time, according to a

, often by wide margins. Pac-10 teams won their seven FCS games last season by an average score of 48-11.

Next fall Washington State plays an Idaho State team whose lone 2010 victory came against the

, and California hosts someone called the

(no, it's not a team of aging female ministers). Ticket prices often reflect fans' regard for the games, sometimes costing less than half the admission for a marquee matchup.

"I don't ever go to those games," said Lois McMenamin, who lives in the Seattle area and has had Ducks season tickets with her family for a decade. "I mean, they're blowouts."

That tendency, along with USC's storied football tradition and the many activities competing for fans' time in Los Angeles, shapes the Trojans' rare philosophy.

"I'm sort of proud that we haven't scheduled an FCS," said Steve Lopes, USC senior associate athletic director. "But you never say 'never.'"

It's increasingly difficult and expensive to sign a fellow FBS team to a onetime trip. FCS games help athletic directors reach a magic number: seven.

"Seven games are important from a financial perspective if you can make it net out,"

said.

Though the Beavers have six home games next season, they do host Sacramento State. FCS games have become nearly irresistible bargains, a fact that swayed

to end the Huskies' non-FCS-game streak and schedule reigning FCS champion Eastern Washington.

"I just think that the prices that the lower-revenue and smaller FBS schools were charging were getting outrageous," Woodward said. And besides, "Some of the FCS schools can be very competitive."

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