What’s your favorite cupcake? For the SEC, it’s FCS teams

As the regular season is getting close to wrapping up, many teams in the Southeastern Conference are preparing for rivalry week by playing cupcakes.

Rivalry week isn’t here just yet for teams in the Southeastern Conference, but apparently cupcake week is. As teams in the SEC are gearing up for their final game of the regular season, many have scheduled a less-than-intimidating sort of opponent.

This weekend in the SEC starts as Auburn hosts Samford in a game that should be well over by halftime. Across the state in Tuscaloosa at the same time, Alabama will be hosting Western Carolina.

A few hours later, Kentucky faces UT-Martin while Vanderbilt takes on East Tennessee State. LSU will then host Arkansas (while not an FCS team, Arkansas is probably worse than many FCS teams) and Mississippi State takes on Abilene Christian.

If you haven’t heard of half of those teams, that’s totally fair and understandable. These are smaller schools with notably smaller football programs.

There’s no real way that these teams should really be able to contend with teams from the SEC. That’s not to say that someone like Vanderbilt won’t slip up and let a team like East Tennessee State challenge them, but it shouldn’t happen. It definitely shouldn’t happen to teams like Auburn or Alabama.

So, why are these games happening?

There are many valid criticisms that can be made of this practice (such as the fact that these games won’t be competitive, for starters), but it should be noted that these sorts of games do benefit the FCS programs involved in these games financially.

That big payday can help keep entire athletic departments afloat and help keep college football a legitimate reality for smaller schools.

According to a report by The Plainsman, Auburn is handing $450,000 over to Samford so that the Tigers can get an easy game between Georgia and the Iron Bowl.

And the Samford Bulldogs are far from the only team making a ton of money this weekend. USA Today reports that Alabama is paying Western Carolina $525,000, Kentucky and Mississippi State are each paying $500,000 for their cupcakes, and Vanderbilt is sending $390,000 to East Tennessee State.

This weekend, the SEC is paying FCS teams a total of $1,865,000 in games that those FCS teams realistically should lose (and will likely lose by several touchdowns).

Is the money really worth it?

Most college football fans won’t be interested in these games. Unless something miraculous or ridiculous happens, the ending to any sort of contest between a team from the FCS and a team from the SEC is predetermined: that SEC team is going to win by multiple touchdowns.

More than likely, these contests won’t be enjoyable for the fans, the coaches, or any of the players involved from either team.

It can’t be fun to get shoved and smacked around for three to four hours only to lose by a ridiculous margin. It also probably isn’t all that much fun to take part in a blowout.

But as long as teams like Abilene Christian decide that they need half-a-million dollars and teams like Mississippi State who need an extra win to help keep from having a losing season are willing to pay for a win, these games will keep happening.

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