The Cost of Embarrassment: How Much CFB Teams Paid for 'Paycheck Losses' in 2015
It's a script that is repeated constantly during any given college football season.
A college football team, usually a Power Five one, pays a team from a smaller conference hundreds of thousands of dollars to come play a nonconference game away from home. The bigger team gets a comfortable win to boost its record, while the smaller team picks up a good bit of cash for its troubles.
But things don't always go according to plan, especially in a sport that is known for chaos and disorder.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
During the 2015 regular season, a dozen programs dealt with the embarrassment of losing these "paycheck" games—meaning they essentially paid money to take an L on the schedule.
Payout information wasn't available online for every paycheck loss in 2015, but research shows FBS teams paid at least a combined $4 million to lose this season.
Some programs paid more dearly than others, and a couple of underdogs snagged more than one paycheck victory.
Here's the final bill from the regular season, along with a look at the biggest winners and losers of these nonconference agreements:
| 1 | Portland State 24, Washington State 17 | $525,000 | Associated Press |
| 1 | North Dakota 24, Wyoming 13 | $325,000 | Casper Star-Tribune |
| 1 | Fordham 37, Army West Point 35 | N/A | |
| 1 | South Dakota State 41, Kansas 38 | N/A | |
| 2 | Toledo 16, Arkansas 12 | $1,000,000 | Toledo Blade |
| 2 | Bowling Green 48, Maryland 27 | $400,000 | Testudo Times |
| 3 | Furman 16, UCF 15 | $385,000 | Twitter (@osknights) |
| 4 | Bowling Green 35, Purdue 28 | $450,000 | Twitter (@ByBerkowitz) |
| 4 | James Madison 48, SMU 45 | $425,000 | JMU Breeze |
| 5 | Liberty 41, Georgia State 33 | $125,000 | Atlanta Journal-Consitution |
| 6 | Portland State 66, North Texas 7 | $425,000 | Denton Record-Chronicle |
| 12 | The Citadel 23, South Carolina 22 | $275,000 | Twitter (@darrenrovell) |
| TOTAL | $4,335,000 |
Biggest Payday
The one game that sticks out from all the rest in the above list has to be Toledo's 16-12 upset of Arkansas.
The Razorbacks paid the Rockets exactly $1 million—almost twice as much as any other paycheck loss this season—to come to Little Rock and kick off what would be a rough early-season slide for Bret Bielema's team.
Toledo's first win over an SEC school was a rather bizarre one. Arkansas racked up 515 yards of total offense, almost 200 more than Toledo, but could muster only one touchdown.
From a statistical standpoint, arguably no other team in college football history had a harder time finishing offensive drives in a single game than the Razorbacks did during Week 2:
The $1 million price tag was quite a bonus for Toledo, which played its first game of the 2015 season in Little Rock after a Week 1 cancellation against Stony Brook. The rising power out of the MAC got an even bigger shot in the arm for its future.
"We've had a vision of what we can build this football program into," Toledo head coach Matt Campbell told Sports Illustrated after the win. "I think we're really just scratching the surface right now where we are and where we can go."
Toledo would knock off another Power Five team, Iowa State, as part of a home-and-home agreement the next weekend. The Rockets won their first seven games of the season and were contenders for a New Year's Six bowl bid before late losses to Northern Illinois and Western Michigan.
The early-season success gave enough of a boost for Campbell to become the new head coach at Iowa State, the team his Rockets had beaten earlier in the year. New head coach Jason Candle will lead Toledo into an intriguing Boca Raton Bowl matchup against Temple this week.
Arkansas, on the other hand, would lose three of its next four games before rallying in the second half of the season. Bielema's Razorbacks finished the regular season 7-5 and will face Kansas State in the Liberty Bowl.
Biggest winners
Two teams pulled off a pair of paycheck wins this season—FBS school Bowling Green and FCS school Portland State.
Bowling Green pulled off two wins over Big Ten teams in the span of three weeks.
The Falcons opened their run with a stunning 21-point victory at Maryland. The two teams were tied heading into the fourth quarter, but BGSU quarterback Matt Johnson threw four touchdown passes in less than 10 minutes of game time to spark a 48-27 win.
The host Terps threw three interceptions on three straight drives to end the game.
Two weeks later, Bowling Green went to Purdue and knocked off Purdue by a score of 35-28. The pass-happy Falcons got a touchdown on the ground from running back Travis Green with nine seconds left to pull off the upset in West Lafayette.
"For me, I’ve beaten two Big Ten teams before and for my team, it is huge," Bowling Green head coach Dino Babers said after the game, per quotes released by Purdue. "These guys will remember this for the rest of their lives. I’m really happy for them."
For their Big Ten wins, Bowling Green netted a cool $850,000 and the right to print these T-shirts:
"Bowling Green is 2-0 against the Big Ten, so here's a pretty good T-shirt http://t.co/Exw3Ra16aH pic.twitter.com/KqBwIziExu
— RIP Bitcoin Bowl (@JasonKirkSBN) September 26, 2015"
Bowling Green would go on to win the MAC with one of the nation's most exciting offenses, and Babers moved up to the Power Five level at the end of the season by taking the head coaching job at Syracuse.
Portland State's giant slayings might have been more impressive, especially considering the Vikings went 3-9 in 2014.
In their first game under new head coach Bruce Barnum, the Vikings traveled up to Pullman, Washington and handed Washington State a 24-17 defeat. Portland State only had 61 passing yards but was able to ultimately outgun Mike Leach's Air Raid system by limiting mistakes and playing ball-control football.
Although the Cougars rebounded to have a successful season in 2015, Washington State paid Portland State over half a million dollars for the early loss.
A few weeks later—following its first loss of the season to fellow FCS opponent North Dakota—Portland State served up what was the most jaw-dropping scoreline of the season.
The Vikings traveled to face FBS program North Texas and won 66-7. The unprecedented beatdown led to the quick firing of North Texas head coach Dan McCarney and even more money for the program.
Portland State got $425,000 for the shocking 59-point win, and Barnum received a permanent deal after starting the season as an interim.
"The team, I shook every one of their hands," Barnum told ESPN.com. "I took a couple hits, which I didn't need. I'm too old and out of shape for shoulder bumping, but it was fun times, cool times."
Portland State, the first FCS team to beat two FBS teams in one season since North Dakota State did it back in 2007, finished 9-3 this season and was the overall No. 6 seed in the FCS playoffs.
Biggest Scares
SEC teams are willing to shell out the big bucks in these one-off paycheck agreements, as evidenced by Arkansas' million-dollar mishap against Toledo.
And the preseason pick to win the conference, Auburn, came close to losing in what would have been the biggest upset in college football history.
In Week 2, the Tigers went down to the wire against in-state FCS opponent Jacksonville State. Quarterback Jeremy Johnson, a preseason Heisman contender who fizzled quickly, threw a pair of interceptions as Auburn gave up 438 yards to its lower-division guests.
Johnson would lead the Auburn offense to a game-tying touchdown with under a minute left and an overtime touchdown, giving the Tigers a narrow 27-20 victory.
According to Mark Edwards of the Anniston Star (via NCAA.com), Auburn paid Jacksonville State $525,000 and 900 tickets for the Week 2 matchup—and the Gamecocks almost pulled off the upset as 41-point underdogs.
"Everybody knows where Jacksonville State is now. They know it’s in Alabama and not Jacksonville, Florida," JSU head coach John Grass told Bleacher Report's Adam Kramer. "You can’t put a price tag on what it did for our university. It was good to play as well as we did on that stage, even though we’re disappointed we didn’t win."
Auburn fell way short of preseason expectations with a 6-6 record in the regular season, while Jacksonville State is headed to the FCS Championship Game in January as the subdivision's No. 1 overall seed.
Over in the SEC East, Florida paid a ton of money to be terrified not once, but twice during the regular season.
The Gators had two one-possession victories at home during their nonconference schedule—a 31-24 one over East Carolina and a 20-14 one in overtime over Florida Atlantic. (Neither opponent became bowl-eligible in 2015.)
Florida went up by two touchdowns midway through the fourth quarter against ECU in Week 2, but a fumble inside Gator territory with less than two minutes remaining prevented the Pirates from potentially tying things up in The Swamp.
Toward the end of the season, a now-Top-10 Florida team had to go to overtime against an FAU squad that went only 3-9. The Gators missed an extra point in the post-regulation period and needed a fourth-down stop to knock off the Owls.
According to Adam Silverstein of OnlyGators.com, Florida paid $1.2 million to East Carolina and $1 million to Florida Atlantic for the nonconference visits this season.
Silverstein noted that the high price points were nothing new for the Florida athletic department:
"Consider this: Florida paid $550,000 to lose to Georgia Southern in 2013 and $975,000 for a season opener against Idaho that was canceled due to severe lightning.
Combine those sums with new head coach Jim McElwain’s $7 million buyout from Colorado State (made in payments, including a 2018 game against CSU) and the program being forced to pay $6.3 million to end Will Muschamp’s contract, and the cost of playing (what they hope will be) winning football has gotten quite expensive in Gainesville, Florida.
"
Fortunately, though, Florida had a great amount of success in 2015 under McElwain by winning the SEC East and going 10-3 in the regular season.
Even though they paid $2.2 million to get scared to near-football death, the Gators finished in a much better spot than Auburn and several FBS teams that paid dearly for losses in 2015.
Payout information
- $525,000 for Portland State-Washington State (Associated Press)
- $325,000 for North Dakota-Wyoming (Ryan Holmgren of the Casper Star-Tribune)
- $1 million for Toledo-Arkansas (Toledo Blade)
- $400,000 for Bowling Green-Maryland (Alex Kirshner of SB Nation's Testudo Times)
- $385,000 for Furman-UCF (Shannon Green of the Orlando Sentinel)
- $450,000 for Bowling Green-Purdue (Steve Berkowitz of USA Today)
- $425,000 for James Madison-SMU (Andre Haboush of The Breeze)
- $125,000 for Liberty-Georgia State (Doug Roberson of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
- $425,000 for Portland State-North Texas (Brett Vito of the Denton Record-Chronicle)
- $275,000 for The Citadel-South Carolina (Darren Rovell of ESPN)
Justin Ferguson is a college football writer at Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @JFergusonBR.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
