University of Wisconsin athletic department officials admit the football team's 2009 non-conference schedule has a significant flaw in its design.

That defect is not -- at least in their eyes -- Saturday's home game against Wofford, which will become the fourth opponent from the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly called Division I-AA) to visit Camp Randall Stadium in as many seasons.

Rather, the problem with the schedule, as UW officials see it, is the absence of an opponent from one of college football's six major conferences. This marks the second consecutive year the Badgers' non-conference schedule will not include a Bowl Championship Series opponent, a streak that will end next season when Arizona State visits Madison.

"The difference is over the last two years, we haven't had a

BCS team on the schedule, and I think we need to do a better job of that," said John Chadima, UW's associate athletic director for capital projects and sports administration, and who was the point person for UW football scheduling for several years. "And I think we have in the years coming up."

UW coach Bret Bielema echoed that opinion earlier this week and pointed to upcoming home-and-home series with Arizona State, Oregon State, Virginia Tech and Washington State.

"My goal is what we all want," Bielema said. "I want as good a schedule as we can have that's also a manageable schedule because of the Big Ten schedule that lays out in front of us."

Home sweet home

While some UW fans might not like hearing it, that schedule almost certainly will include games against FCS teams like Wofford for years to come. South Dakota is already scheduled to visit Madison in 2011, and Chadima confirmed one of the two unannounced opponents on next year's schedule will be an FCS program.

It's no coincidence UW's run of playing FCS teams began in 2006, the first season the NCAA went to a 12-game schedule on an annual basis. Since then, programs like UW have been scrambling for opponents to fill a seventh home game that would generate additional revenue.

"The reality in college football is there's the group of schools that wants to have the home games no matter what, and there's the group of schools that will travel for a check at any cost," said John Jentz, UW's associate athletic director for business operations. "We certainly fall in the former (category). It makes financial sense for us to have more home games. It helps support the whole operation."

Home games net approximately $3 million for the athletic department -- the bulk of which comes from the $2.5 million it generates each game in ticket revenue -- before its payout to opponents.

Not only does a seventh home game help the athletic department cover its expenses each fiscal year, it also helps UW keep down the cost of season tickets. At $39, the Badgers have the third-lowest average ticket price in the Big Ten and haven't raised that cost to fans in two seasons.

"In order to meet our same bottom line without dramatically changing our operation, if we only have six home football games in a year, we probably would have to take the cost of the season ticket and divide it by six," Jentz said.

The amount of the guarantee UW pays its opponent goes a long way in determining how profitable Saturdays in the fall are to the athletic department.

During this season's set of non-conference games, the guarantee ranges from the $375,000 Fresno State received from UW as part of a home-and-home series to the $800,000 Northern Illinois received, a figure which is somewhat deceiving because it's part of a bigger overall package that will include the Badgers receiving roughly $1 million to play the Huskies at Soldier Field in 2011.

Wofford will receive $525,000 for Saturday's game, which seems like a lot until you realize what UW could be paying if it were to end its practice of scheduling FCS opponents.

Just take a look at what two non-BCS programs are receiving for playing in Big Ten stadiums this season: Arkansas State, a Football Bowl Subdivision program that plays in the Sun Belt Conference, will receive $900,000 for a game at Iowa next month. Navy received $1 million for playing at Ohio State Sept. 5 in both teams' season opener.

Chadima calls the payouts "astronomical" and cites the NCAA's decision to add a 12th game as the spark that got the fire burning out of control.

"The 12th game was added," Chadima said, "and I think that got these mid-major teams salivating, so to speak."

A 'realistic' schedule

Whether it's Chadima, Bielema or UW athletic director Barry Alvarez, UW officials are quick to point out their contemporaries in college football are following the same scheduling practice as the Badgers.

The 2009 schedule includes 93 games between FBS and FCS opponents. Fifty of the 65 teams from the six BCS conferences -- or 76 percent -- are playing at least one game against a team from the FCS.

Ohio State and Purdue are the only Big Ten members not playing FCS teams this season, although both did in 2008. The only league member not to play a FCS team before this season was Michigan State, and that streak ended when Montana State visited East Lansing on Sept. 5.

Now, there are only four teams remaining in the 120-member FBS that haven't played an FCS school. Three of those schools -- USC, UCLA and Washington -- are from the Pac-10, which plays a nine-game league schedule and thus has one less non-conference game to fill; Notre Dame is the other.

As for UW's future schedules, Chadima looks at Iowa's 2009 slate as a model of sorts. The Hawkeyes play a BCS opponent at home (Arizona) and on the road (Iowa State) and fill out their schedule with home games against Arkansas State and Northern Iowa, an FCS program.

"That, to me, in this day and age, is not a bad schedule," Chadima said. "I'm sure some fans will disagree with that. But it's a schedule that I think is realistic for us to move forward with."

Related

• Blog: Looking ahead to Wofford
• Wisconsin Badgers football: Another schedule, another FCS opponent

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