Playing up pays off not only in dollars

Cash and an opportunity.

That’s what Eastern Washington took for the first two weeks of the college football season and what the Eagles will give today to Western Washington.

Eastern played up a division in taking on Texas Tech and Colorado in the first two games of the season and, despite losing both games, earned a hefty $900,000, minus expenses.

The payoff is not so great for Western, a Division II team playing up. EWU athletics director Bill Chaves said the Eagles will pay Western $25,000. Despite the difference in payoff, the opportunity is just as great.

“It’s a big deal,” said EWU coach Beau Baldwin, who was the head coach at Central Washington last season. “When you’re a Division II team, a lot of times you have players who at one time or another thought they would be recruited to play in the Big Sky Conference. For whatever reason that didn’t work out, so it means a lot to go play up a level.

“During my years at Central … one of the fondest memories is our win at Montana State.”

It seems the jump from D-II to FCS (Football Championship Subdivision, formerly Div. 1-AA) is far greater than from FCS to FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision).

The 119 FBS teams that are playing for a spot in one of 34 bowl games have 85 scholarships, can only give full rides, and can only accept enough walk-ons to make a 105-man roster.

The 115 teams playing for one of 16 spots in the FCS playoffs have 63 scholarships but they can split them among players, then accept as many walk-ons as they can afford up to a 90-man roster.

WWU and Central Washington have 24 scholarships and both divide them among about 70 players on rosters approaching 100.

“We try to spread it around,” Central coach Blaine Bennett said. “It’s a real challenge to keep track of.”

Those are just numbers, though, that don’t really concern players and coaches.

“We don’t get caught up in thinking about what will happen if things don’t go right,” Baldwin said. “The way I see it, no matter whether we’re playing a 1-A team like we did the last two weeks or a Division II team, we’re excited to play. We want to compete.”