Ball St. is an FBS school. As such, they are required to maintain a certain minimum level of funding for the football program in accord with NCAA standards. In addition, they are permitted to award 85 scholarships to players on their football team per year. They also went 9-4 and appeared in a bowl game. Last year, they beat two BCS conference schools in Indiana (B1G member) and South Florida (Big East member). They also beat Toledo, who was ranked #25 in the country at the time.Furman is an FCS school. As such, they are in the subdivision of Division I football known as the "cost-containment" level of Division I football. They do not need to meet the minimum funding requirements of FBS level programs. They are permitted to award 63 total scholarships and can actually break them up (giving partial scholarships). Many are pointing out Southern Cal's lack of depth right now due to their scholarship limits, but they are limited to 75, which is obviously 12 more than Furman is able to award. Imagine how badly hurt Southern Cal would be if the NCAA took away an additional 12 scholarships.As a result, an FCS school, such as Furman is going to be hamstrung in finding the same quality of football players that FBS schools, such as Ball St. are able to sign. Furman also went 3-8 in FCS last year and failed to qualify for the playoffs. They were beaten by more than three touchdowns by fellow-FCS schools Chattanooga, Georgia Southern and the Citadel.Ball St. is most likely a much better football team/program than Furman.What is it besides uniform colors?Yes.Is there really a difference in playing Ball St or Furman?Well...that's what we hope anyway. I'll believe it when I see it though.I mean if Bama is 13-0 and has Furman on the schedule, then sure they're in. But if they're 12-1 and so is Oklahoma State and the worst team OSU has on it's docket is a MAC team...that committee is going to focus very hard on that.If that's really the case, then they won't be on the schedule. Not exactly sure how we're going to know in advance...but Im very sure it won't come to light by a team who currently schedules one not getting a playoff bid because of it.None of this makes any sense. If you want to be playing for a national title in 2014 you better not have an FCS school on your schedule.Many programs that schedule FBS opponents have no reason not to at this point. IMO the biggest influence that gets it stopped is Alum/Season Ticket Holder pushback...which is definitely happening. ADs are getting an earful about that these days.I know you weren't but I have seen the argument made many times in print and by some of my friends that are alums from other conferences (a friend who is a The SEC is really doing it to help out the FCS schools in their footprint, etc.I didn't mean to suggest that the BCS schools were scheduling these games for altruistic reasons. I agree with you that they want the easy wins and the revenue that the home game generates with no fuss. The race to the bottom aspect is unfortunate. Maybe they could institute a minimum amount but that is probably more trouble than it's worth.
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The king of one liner hi-jacks here really just posted that. Good stuff.
Let's do this...let's talk about the new uniform rules...you start 
FWIW...I know several Auburn fans who took complete pride in the Alabama "championship" this year....they were all over my facebook page.
