When Youngstown State leaves Beaver Stadium after the game Saturday, the Penguins will walk out with many reasons to remember the experience -- 350,000 reasons to be precise.

As compensation for its participation in Saturday's game, which many anticipate will be a rout, Youngstown State will receive $350,000 from Penn State for its services.

This isn't the first time the Penguins have played a Division I-A team for profit.

Trevor Parks, Youngstown State's director of sports information, said the team raked in $250,000 last year when it played at Pittsburgh, a 41-0 drubbing.

"Part of the reason why that was a bit less was because we didn't have to stay over night," Parks said.

Add a night in a hotel, and a Division I-A team will have to beef up the payout.

Next year Youngstown State will travel a few hours south to Columbus to take on Ohio State. The purse? More than $600,000.

The big boys of college football -- especially now that every Division I-A team must play 12 games during the regular season -- schedule lower echelon teams (including other Division I-A institutions) to come in, draw some people to the games and then roll over.

It's essentially a purchased victory.

The home team always makes its money back, though, as a school like Penn State, for example, rakes in millions per game at Beaver Stadium.

The Nittany Lions scheduled Youngstown State last year after Louisiana Tech backed out of
its commitment to play in Happy Valley.

This is no longer the exception, as more and more small schools travel farther and farther to play the role of doormat-for-hire.

I-AA schools do not travel across the country (as Eastern Washington did last week to face West Virginia)

for the airline food and the sightseeing. Instead, a game against a far more powerful foe will typically yield a far greater payday than what can be earned from facing off against a fellow I-AA squad.

Montana, for instance, received $450,000 last year for visiting Oregon, and $650,000 earlier this season when the Grizzlies traveled to Iowa.

Portland State, seeing the tremendous earning potential, scheduled three Division I-A opponents this year.

To put the Penguins' $350,000 payday into perspective, their football program reported its 2004 (the most recent year for which data is available) operating expenses, otherwise known as game day costs, at $380,972.

The total operating expenses of Youngstown State's athletic program, which includes 14 teams in all, came to $1.13 million for the 2004-05 academic year.

In 2005, Division I-AA teams were 2-50 against Division I-A opponents.