Florida Opens Up At -73 Points Over Charleston Southern; Everyone (but the fans) Is Laughing All The Way To The Bank

10 touchdowns, 10 extra points, and 1 field goal. That's what the Florida Gators have to score to at least push with the Charleston Southern Buccaneers on September 5th. That's it according to Danny Sheridan of USA Today.

Ron Morris of 'The State' newspaper in South Carolina posted an online column yesterday which explained Charleston's reasoning for accepting this massacre vs. Florida:

"The good things to happen to Charleston Southern – other than maybe covering the point spread – will be the tremendous national exposure it gets and the $450,000 check it will receive from Florida.

Leading up to the game and all day Sept.5, Charleston Southern's name will be displayed on ESPN. No school, particularly one with an enrollment of 3,201 students, can afford to purchase that kind of publicity.

With the $450,000, Charleston Southern plans to add a field house at CSU Stadium. It will include an academic resource center for athletes and enough locker room space so its teams no longer must share lockers."

The Wiz of Odds explains why the BCS needs a stronger 'strength-of-schedule component' in its rankings as well as how it's the fans that are getting taken advantage of here:

"These issues impact you, the fan. Aren't you tired of paying higher prices for tickets and getting less? And if you want decent seats, you have to give money to the alumni association. All this in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. What are you getting in return? Charleston Southern?

College football has become nothing short of a scam, with coaches making millions of dollars and abusing fan rights by scheduling creampuff opponents in order to 1) go to a bowl game and 2) get another year on a rollover contract. Athletic directors, whose employment is often tied to the success of the football program, simply play along.

The excuses given for such behavior are 1) the conference schedule is so brutally tough, we have to schedule a couple of creampuffs and 2) we need a seventh or eighth home game to pay the bills.

Cry me a river. It's a man's sport, so try acting like one and play somebody. As for paying the bills, try exercising some fiscal responsibility, especially when it comes to awarding multimillion dollar contracts to coaches."

The Wiz also probes a little deeper into the Gators by saying, "Florida last played an out-of-state regular season nonconference game in 1991, a 38-21 loss at Syracuse. The Gators last played a regular season game west of the Mississippi in 1983 when they traveled to USC and battled the Trojans to a 19-19 tie."

Earlier this week, Paul Gattis of the Alabama Times had some interesting things to say about the non-conference schedules as a whole for the SEC:

***Ten of the 12 teams scheduled at least one Division I-AA opponent. Ole Miss scheduled two I-AAs.

***Of the 48 SEC non-conference games, only six (12.5 percent) are against teams in the USA Today coaches Top 25 preseason poll. Three of those six are against Georgia Tech -- who is an honorary member of the SEC this season.

***Georgia is the only SEC team to face two teams in the USA Today coaches Top 25 preseason poll.

***And most embarrassing: The SEC seeks out the weakest programs in Division I to beat up on. Not only does the SEC feast on Division I-AA cupcakes, apparently they love to snack on the minnows of Division I. According to Sports Illustrated, which ranked all 120 teams in Division I, SEC teams have scheduled:
No. 120 -- Western Kentucky
No. 119 -- North Texas
No. 116 -- Louisiana-Lafayette
No. 115 -- Florida International (2 SEC teams)
No. 114 -- Eastern Michigan
No. 113 -- Miami (Ohio)
No. 112 -- UAB
No. 110 -- Louisiana-Monroe
No. 109 -- Middle Tennessee
No. 107 -- Rice
No. 106 -- Tulane
No. 102 -- Army
No. 98 -- Memphis (2 SEC teams)
No. 93 -- Florida Atlantic

This is what the monster known as the BCS has come to. It has come to having an elite conference such as the SEC schedule nothing but guaranteed wins in the non-conference that will ensure them a stronger BCS ranking in the end as well as a paycheck that will be just as profitable vs. a team like Eastern Michigan as opposed to a Top 30 or 40 team. Nothing more, nothing less.

It's not going to matter what you or I think about this. We still pay money to see these games and if we don't, someone else will.

Maybe it's me, but I just can't make sense of any of this:

• The NCAA expanded the schedule to 12 games because...?
• The Big 10, Pac-10, and Big East won't play a conference championship game because...?
  
• By creating a playoff in Division 1, the NCAA would interfere with the student-athletes' academic schedules how...?
  
• The student-athletes in Division 1-AA, 2, and 3 have time for a playoff because...?
  

None of it makes any cents sense.

**Update: Thanks to Dr. Saturday's diligent fact checking (and a trip to the paper stand), the line on the game is 63!**

Take Florida.