College football, like the National Football League before it, truly has turned into a money business.

Year after year, big-time football programs schedule cupcake games early in the season, hoping to enter conference play 4-0 and just two wins away from bowl eligibility.

They could, of course, schedule Bowl Championship Series competition. But why do that when you can have sure wins on your schedule?

Take No. 2 ranked Georgia for example. It’s highly doubtful the Bulldogs brought CMU into Sanford Stadium last weekend because they thought the team had a serious chance at beating Georgia.

They wanted an easier game than playing, say, No. 1 ranked Southern California, which scheduled No. 3 Ohio State on Saturday.

CMU was all over the idea of playing in Georgia, despite the possibility of a blowout. Why? You guessed it – money.

Georgia paid CMU $750,000, according to georgiadogs.com, to beat it 56-17 last weekend. It sounds like a lot just for a win if you’re the Bulldogs. But if you’re CMU, is $750,000 really worth the risk of demoralizing your players?

Anybody watching the game knows that CMU didn’t play like a team that lost 56-17. But if your idea is to get national exposure, you sure didn’t do yourself a favor because the score is all the rest of the nation will look at.

And the score wasn’t pretty by any means, even if it wasn’t a 70-14 result like last year at Clemson.

We understand why CMU will take the money and play against a big school. For one, it’s extra money for the athletics department, and a win would be monumental for the program, let alone a close game. And it’s always helpful to know where the team stands against the big boys.

But in the case of last Saturday’s game, it doesn’t look like such a good idea. Losing 56-17 can have its negative effects on a football program – it interrupts a team’s confidence, it can set a hot team backwards and it gives the fans very little to cheer about.

We’d rather watch CMU play an easier squad, risk taking less money and have a better chance at winning. Bowling Green took that route when playing at then-No. 25 ranked Pittsburgh two Saturdays ago, and it turned into a big 27-17 win for the Falcons.

The consolation is that CMU does play two easier BCS schools in Purdue and Indiana this year. But we think it should hold off on scheduling another Georgia or Clemson for a little while.

The program is just not getting its money’s worth out of those games right now.

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