Something UCLA shares with Notre Dame and USC

Did you know this?

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.

Notre Dame, UCLA and USC 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.

Games between FBS and FCS teams have spiked 70 percent since a 2005 NCAA rule change 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."

UCLA deserves props for not being desperate enough to schedule FCS programs but I still have issues with the athletic department scheduling "nationally televised" games, putting our team tough situation on the road. One of many things DG is not doing right at UCLA.