In 1916, Cumberland College, a small private school in Lebanon, Tenn., was scheduled to play Georgia Tech, but there was a slight problem: Cumberland had canceled all of its sports programs for financial reasons the previous spring.

A student manager at the smaller school had neglected to inform all parties, and Georgia Tech refused to allow Cumberland to back out of the agreement. So, that same student rounded up 13 members of his fraternity to play the game in Atlanta — saving the school from a $3,000 buyout fee and instead earning $500 for Cumberland.

Predictably, the frat brothers were routed by coach John Heisman’s Golden Tornado 222-0, the most lopsided victory in college football history. Heisman, for whom the most famous individual trophy in college sports is named, ran up the score without apology.

More than a century later, lesser college football programs are still being sacrificed to larger programs in lopsided matchups commonly referred to as “revenue games” — or, less charitably, “cupcake games.” The practice comes to the Bay Area this weekend, where Cal and Stanford each will host one of the 111 revenue games between mismatched schools scheduled across the college football landscape this season.

These games have always been controversial — producing boring games, injured players and disappointed fans — but revenue games remain a scheduling regularity that’s seemingly ingrained in the sport. Many feel it’s an economic win-win in the multibillion-dollar business of college football, while critics argue these games are downright unethical in amateur athletics.

“The small schools get a big payday, and the big schools get a victory. It’s a win-win for the schools, but you have to wonder how the players feel about going out and getting slaughtered,” said Woody Eckard, a professor of economics at the University of Colorado Denver business school. “The optimistic ones might think they can win, but in the first five minutes, they’re probably going to change their minds about that.”

For college football only, the NCAA has divided Division I schools into two categories: the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). The bigger, top-tier schools compete in the FBS. The smaller schools are grouped in the FCS.

Most importantly, FBS teams get to award 85 football scholarships annually, while the lower-level FCS teams get only 63. That creates a virtual guaranteed disparity in the level of talent when schools from the two different divisions meet.

How does it work?

The bigger schools generally schedule these mismatches, also known as “paycheck games,” to guarantee both the ticket-sale and concession revenue from a home game and an easy win that gets them one step closer to the six victories needed to qualify for a postseason bowl game (which brings with it another payday).

The smaller programs get paid by the bigger school to just show up. They cash a sizable check, choose opponents in regions good for recruiting or destinations that create attractive trips for boosters and donors. The trade-off: Players get humiliated — or worse.

Sometimes, it’s much worse.

In the third quarter of Georgia’s 48-6 drubbing of Southern in 2015, 158-pound Devon Gales was in a violent collision during a kick return that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Georgia paid Southern about $1 million to play the game, approximately one-ninth of the Louisiana school’s total athletic budget for the year.

“The (big school) has a huge advantage in size and speed, and the little guys get beat up pretty bad,” said Gary Cavalli, co-founder and former executive director of what is now called the San Francisco Bowl. “So, yes, they come home with a boatload of money, but they also come home with a boatload of injuries that can affect them for the rest of the season. As for the (big school), what did they prove? And, they also run the risk that some pass rusher on the other team may try to make a name for himself by taking out the quarterback.”

Southern wide receiver Devon Gales (33) is taken off the field after he was injured in a violent collision during a blowout win by Georgia in 2015. Southern wide receiver Devon Gales (33) is taken off the field after he was injured in a violent collision during a blowout win by Georgia in 2015. Photo: John Bazemore / Associated Press 2015 Photo: John Bazemore / Associated Press 2015 Image 1 of / 19 Caption Close College football ‘revenue games’: Why do they play these unfair blowouts? 1 / 19 Back to Gallery

The Bay Area’s biggest football programs are no strangers to revenue games, almost annually arranging one amid the 3-D chess it takes to create a college football schedule.

In 2011, Cal hosted Presbyterian, a South Carolina school with 963 undergraduates. After making the longest trip in program history to play the Bears at AT&T Park, the Presbyterian players were pounded 63-13 and outgained by 533 yards. The Blue Hose were paid $400,000 for their troubles.

The annual spectacle repeats itself this weekend, at both Cal and Stanford.

On Saturday, Cal will pay $625,000 to host Idaho State, which has had only one winning season since 2003 and last month fired its athletic director. The 11,000-student school in Pocatello, Idaho, plays its home games in Holt Arena, which was built in 1970 and is the oldest enclosed stadium on a college campus in the United States. The football team struggles to average 50 percent attendance in the 12,000-seat facility.

Earlier that day, UC Davis will get $650,000 to play at Stanford in a continuation of a series that often prompts grumbling from season-ticket holders forced to pay full freight to watch their team’s starters play about half of the game. (Next year, Cal will pay UC Davis $625,000 to visit Berkeley.)

“Games should be competitive, otherwise why play?” longtime Stanford fan Emory Lee of Palo Alto said. “I don’t understand how Alabama fans, for example, can really enjoy watching the other team get pummeled. I was also puzzled by Stanford’s decision to fill in the vacant spot in the schedule with UC Davis. I thought the strength-of-schedule consideration (used by the NCAA when picking year-end bowl teams) would lead Stanford to find a stronger opponent in what should be a great year for Stanford football.”

Scheduling controversies

For the haves of college football, there’s really no incentive to skip the “cupcake games.” No matter how weak a team’s nonconference schedule is, fans still buy season tickets. The College Football Playoff selection committee doesn’t seem to penalize top teams for booking mismatched revenue games, though CFP Executive Director Bill Hancock said the committee does take them into consideration.

“The committee considers all the games and who the opponents are,” he told The Chronicle. “It behooves a team to play as tough a schedule as possible.”

Yet, last year’s national champion Alabama and runner-up Georgia, like other Southeastern Conference schools, choose to play their revenue games late in the season (Nov. 17 this year), at a point when other conferences, like the Pac-12, are beating each other up.

If SEC schools can play easy revenue games that late in the season, what about schools in the other major conferences (Big Ten, Pac-12, Big 12 and Atlantic Coast Conference) that — with the SEC — compose the “Power-5”?

Such issues have critics calling for reform in the CFP selection process.

“The reality is that some Power-5 programs use those smaller programs as a glorified scrimmage, a way to exhale before a big game, a way to ease into a season,” ESPN college football writer Gene Wojciechowski said. “The danger: The CFP selection committee is paying much closer attention to those Power-5 programs that have a heavy appetite for cupcakes.”

The week before their annual rivalry games this season, Alabama, Auburn, Georgia and Florida will play, respectively, the Citadel, Liberty, Massachusetts and Idaho. Some see that as an unfair advantage for schools that are competing with other conferences to get into the playoff. While the CFP selection says it’s taking this scheduling issue into account when choosing participants in the four-school playoff that decides the national championship, others aren’t so sure. Cavalli said of the committee’s apparently blasé attitude toward the timing of revenue games: “They’re talking the talk, but they’re not walking the walk.”

The Power-5 schools need to “normalize” their schedules, Stanford head coach David Shaw said. “The only way to get to a (fair) four-team playoff is if every team has a similar scheduling rule.”

Some critics argue that Power-5 schools shouldn’t play any non-Power-5 teams. When he said he understood that line of thinking, Shaw said he received “a backlash” from the smaller programs who argued that some schools would have to drop football altogether if deprived of revenue games.

“The smaller schools on the lower levels have to pay the same amount we have to pay for insurance, equipment, field maintenance,” he said. “If you want to renovate a locker room that’s dilapidated, you just don’t have money on hand to do these things.”

When David beats Goliath

To be fair to the smaller schools, revenue games aren’t always blowouts.

Appalachian State was paid $1.2 million to start this season at Penn State. Though Appalachian State’s starting offensive line was outweighed by an average of 42 pounds, the underdogs took Penn State into overtime before losing 45-38.

Technically, Howard’s 43-40 victory over 45-point favorite UNLV in 2017 and Stanford’s 24-23 victory over 40½-point favorite USC in 2007 were bigger upsets, but Appalachian State pulled off the most famous shocker the same year as the Stanford upset. App State went into then-No. 5 Michigan and danced away with a 34-32 win, highlights of which are replayed every season.

Cal offensive coordinator Beau Baldwin was the head coach at Eastern Washington in 2013 when it became only the third FCS school to beat a ranked FBS team with a 49-46 victory over Oregon State.

“The players just weren’t in awe of anything,” he said. “When I think back on it, I always remember feeling that they weren’t afraid of any of it.”

Top 10 revenue game upsets Here are some of the most memorable revenue-game upsets of the last two decades. Year Score Of note 1999 Louisiana Tech 29, Alabama 28 Backup QB threw 28-yard TD pass on final play to shock No. 18 Tide 2007 Appalachian State 34, Michigan 32 The Mountaineers got $400K to play at Big House — and a lot more. 2010 James Madison 21, Virginia Tech 16 Drew Dudzik ran for 2 TDs; Jamal Sullivan went 77 yards on a swing pass. 2010 Jacksonville State 49, Mississippi 48 (OT) Calvin Middleton caught winning 2-point conversion in a crowd. 2012 Texas State 30, Houston 13 The Cougars’ offensive coordinator resigned two days after the game. 2012 Louisiana Monroe 35, Arkansas 31 (OT) Kolton Browning threw for 412 yards and 3 TDs, ran for the winning TD. 2013 Georgia Southern 26, Florida 20 On the triple-option, eight Eagles had at least one run of 10 yards or longer. 2016 North Dakota State 23, Iowa 21 The FCS powerhouse beat the No. 13 Hawkeyes on a field goal as time expired. 2017 Howard 43, UNLV 40 Caylin Newton (Cam’s brother) had 330 total yards for 45-point underdogs. 2017 Liberty 48, Baylor 45 Stephen Calvert threw for 447 yards and 3 TDs for the Flames. The series Every year, you see the mismatches on college schedules. Football powerhouses playing little-known schools. Texas vs. San Jose State. Cal vs. Presbyterian. Stanford vs. UC Davis. Why does college football feature these lopsided games, which the bigger schools usually win by landslide scores? The Chronicle investigates the questionable tradition of “revenue games.” To read the entire series, go to bit.ly/RevGames Today/Part 1: Why college football plays these annual blowouts. A1 Al Saracevic: Bad for players, fans. B1 Thursday/Part 2: What’s in this for the little guy? Friday/Part 3: San Jose State: How they make millions

Tom FitzGerald and Rusty Simmons are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email tfitzgerald@sfchronicle.com, rsimmons@sfchronicle.com, Twitter: @tomfitzgerald, @Rusty_SFChron