John Walters

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -

Fresno State coach Pat Hill has a well-known scheduling philosophy: "Anybody, anywhere, anytime."

That mantra explains why on the first weekend of the college football season the Bulldogs, a Western Athletic Conference member, journeyed 2,893 miles from the San Joaquin Valley to the banks of the Raritan River to play Rutgers. It also explains why Fresno State will host No. 10 Wisconsin from the Big Ten on Saturday evening.

The Badgers and Bulldogs are not the only ranked opponents risking a loss on Saturday in a non-conference game. Earlier in the night No. 5 Ohio State will visit top-ranked USC.

Three of those six teams' first losses will be our gain. Ohio State at USC, for example, the game of the season, will do more than clarify the national championship vista. It will hold college football fans spellbound. And is not that what this or any sport should aspire to?

The Buckeyes vs. the Trojans will not only be a platform for at least a dozen of next spring's NFL draft picks (every NFL GM in America will have a gold-plated DVD of this game on his desk by Monday). It will also propel the season forward, in terms of deciding who belongs in the BCS championship contest … as will Georgia at Arizona State next week.

Look at it this way: Every time two Top 25 teams meet in an intersectional matchup, it's just that much less bloviating we must bear from the likes of Skip Bayless come December. In addition, this year Ohio State is providing us a lease-to-own option on their national championship hopes. No buyer's remorse this season. We get a sneak preview in determining whether Big Ten champs translates to big-time chumps (just between us, so many of the signs portend a Trojans blowout that I'm leaning toward the Buckeyes).

Here's hoping, AP voters, that you mete light punishments to those three teams fated to lose this Saturday. For at least they were willing to test themselves. If Ohio State and USC play a tightly fought contest, for example, why should either of them fall below a No. 7 LSU team whose non-conference foes to the same point will have been FCS champ Appalachian State and North Texas?

Kansas State coach Ron Prince endorses an opposing school of thought than Pat Hill, which explains why Hill's Bulldogs were dormant last Saturday. Last spring, Kansas State opted out of the final game remaining on its three-game series with Fresno State (a Sept. 6 meeting in Manhattan, Kan.). The Wildcats had lost the first two — in 2004 and in their final regular-season game last year, rendereding K-State ineligible for a bowl.

As a result, someone at Kansas State decided that one route to becoming bowl-eligible was to stop scheduling bowl-worthy teams outside the Big 12 schedule (the Wildcats, to their credit, also visited Auburn last September). Hence, a check for $250,000 was sent to Fresno State to cancel their date while a separate check for $350,000 was cut to Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) program Montana State to replace them.

Season-ticket holders got a less entertaining game in hopes of, let's face it, qualifying for a lower-tier bowl come December, a bowl that could pay out in the neighborhood of $1 million with the revenue divided a dozen ways between Big 12 Conference members.

So it wasn't even a fiscally sound maneuver. It was an image makeover for a coach, and a program, that suddenly finds itself the second-best (or, last) FBS power in the Sunflower State.

Which returns us to the most compelling game of this weekend, if not the entire season. No. 5 Ohio State visits No. 1 Southern California, and both schools have much at stake. The favorites in their respective conferences, the Buckeyes and Trojans nevertheless scheduled one another. No one at either the NCAA or at college football's true power factory, ABC/ESPN, compelled them to meet. And the loser departs the Coliseum on Saturday evening cognizant of the fact that their only potential path to the BCS Championship Game next January is to finish the schedule undefeated.

And yet Ohio State and USC will play. Their athletic directors agreed to do so. The Buckeyes may play a Youngstown State here or there, but they've also scheduled home-and-homes with Texas, Washington, Notre Dame and now USC in recent years. The Trojans are equally fearless, visiting Arkansas, Auburn, BYU, Colorado, Nebraska, Notre Dame and Virginia and playing a neutral-site game against Virginia Tech in Landover, Md. in just the past six seasons.

The Trojans have finished each of the past six seasons by playing in a BCS bowl. The Buckeyes, five of the past six (they ended '04 with an Alamo Bowl visit). One can make the argument, of course, that Kansas State lacks Ohio State's and USC's tradition and hence, recruiting advantages. That a school such as K-State serves itself better by racking up wins and building up successive successful seasons upon which to attract recruits. There's a reason, after all, that their home is named Bill Snyder Family Stadium.

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Or one can point to the model that Pat Hill is constructing. The 10th-ranked Badgers represent not only the highest-ranked opponent ever to visit Bulldog Stadium (No. 10 Oregon State also visited in 2001). Wisconsin is also the 10th of the Bulldogs' last 11 non-conference foes to come from a BCS conference; Fresno State, as a WAC school, is a non-BCS team. Those nine previous schools include six ranked opponents (at the time they met), among them then-No. 1 USC ('05) and then-No. 14 LSU ('06), both on the road.

Fresno State is 2-7 in those nine games dating back to the USC contest in November of '05, but it should be noted (and you can bet that Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema is aware) that the two victories came in the Bulldogs' most recent non-conference games: vs. Kansas State last November and at Rutgers — a game scheduled only after K-State dropped Fresno State and with Hill scrambling for a replacement.

Some irony for you: While K-State managed to avoid playing Fresno State this season, erstwhile Wildcat quarterback Allan Evridge does not. Evridge, a senior, will get the start at QB for the Badgers come Saturday night. Three years ago he was a freshman at Kansas State and even started a few games before transferring to Madison.

Last Saturday, Kansas State played Montana State in a cold, gray drizzle. The Wildcats scored the game's first touchdown just 64 seconds into the game — following a snap that sailed over the Montana State punter's head and was downed on the one yard-line. On the ensuing play K-State attempted an onside kick. How sporting of them.

Montana State actually recovered the kick and drove for a tying score. The Wildcats then "out-classed" the visitors 62-3 the rest of the way en route to a 69-10 triumph. You get what you pay for — unless you’re a K-State season-ticket holder.