Bob Spoo's blueprint for his team's game at Beaver Stadium on Saturday is simple: play solid, eliminate turnovers and avoid penalties.
"Be as error-free as we can possibly be," Spoo said.
The Eastern Illinois coach will take his players to an environment this weekend unlike any they have ever experienced.
Their opponent, Penn State, a Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) program, has 85 players on scholarship, plays in a stadium that seats 107,282 fans and is ranked No. 14 in the country.
Eastern Illinois, meanwhile, has 63 players on scholarship, plays in a stadium that seats 10,000 fans and is ranked No. 25 in the country -- among Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) schools.
Yet the Nittany Lions and the Panthers will take the same field Saturday in one of the many matchups between FBS (formerly I-A) and FCS (formerly I-AA) teams since the NCAA allowed schools to add a 12th regular season game in 2006.
Since then, one win over an FCS team can count toward an FBS team's bowl eligibility, and both parties have reaped the benefits of such matchups.
"It's almost necessary to have to play a Football Bowl Subdivision team yearly," Spoo said.
"We get a pretty good payday out of it."
The pricetag on that payday for Saturday's game is $450,000, and figures like that can help smaller schools beyond their football programs.
In the case of Coastal Carolina, an FCS school Penn State hosted for its season-opener last year, annual games against FBS teams generate enough money for all of its student athletes to attend summer school, an alleviated burden of up to $450,000, Chanticleer coach David Bennett said.
"It just doesn't appear out on the street," Bennett said of the money.
In a "perfect world," he added, Coastal Carolina could return the favor with a smaller FCS school every season as well.
Economic inequity, however, keeps that from happening.
"The sad thing is that us FCS schools won't get the same paycheck that a lower tier I-A will get," he said.
Bennett pointed to South Carolina as an example. The Gamecocks defeated FCS opponent South Carolina State, 38-14, last Saturday, a victory that cost them $230,000.
By comparison, South Carolina's 38-16 victory two weeks earlier over Florida Atlantic, a low-level FBS school, cost the Gamecocks $800,000. That's because a second win over an FCS team wouldn't count toward South Carolina's bowl eligibility, so Florida Atlantic was in a better bargaining position with a common date to fill on its schedule.
"What goes into the thought of the scheduling is money. I mean, let's be honest about it," Indiana State coach Trent Miles said. "Whoever we play to get the most money in one shot for our program, for our whole athletic department."
Miles will take his Sycamore team to Penn State in 2011, a year after it plays at 2008 Big East champion Cincinnati. Indiana State lost to Louisville, another Big East team, 30-10, in its second game of this season.
For a program that has not won a game since 2006, the financial gains of playing BCS conference opponents is too much to pass up.
With a combination of 63 freshmen and sophomores currently on his roster, Miles believes the maturation of those underclassmen through the next two seasons will groom them for an environment like Beaver Stadium's.
"They'll be more fired up than normal just because of that wanting to be able to show what they can do in front of all those people," Miles said. "You'll have to calm them down some. They won't be wowed where they're in a daze or anything like that. They'll be fired up, ready to go."
That energy has proven beneficial in such matchups in the past. FCS Appalachian State stunned then-No. 5 Michigan with its 34-32 opening-day win in 2007. The fallout from that game has kept FBS powers grounded, the proverbial giants wary of becoming the next punchline in college football.
Defending his team's scheduling for this season, Penn State coach Joe Paterno this week pulled out from his coat pocket a list of prominent FBS schools that are also playing FCS teams this season.
Among them are Florida State, Miami and Oklahoma, schools that have made up for their perceived inferior nonconference opponents through other games.
Miami beat Oklahoma, 21-20, Saturday and Florida State won at then-No. 7 BYU, 54-28, on Sept. 19.
Alabama and Florida also scheduled FCS teams this season, but the presumed weaknesses of their nonconference schedules have been negated because of the national perception of the SEC, home of the last three BCS National Champions.
The Big Ten's national reputation has taken a hit after six straight BCS bowl losses from conference teams, so a strong nonconference schedule could be a way to atone for it.
But Penn State's three other nonconference opponents -- Akron, Syracuse and Temple -- are a combined 5-8 this season while lacking decorated credentials that could strengthen the Lions' case to play in a better bowl game at the end of the regular season.
Last season, Penn State had originally scheduled Arkansas State, a low-level FBS opponent from the Sun Belt conference, for its second game of the year. Before the season, the Lions were able to bring in Oregon State instead, and their 45-14 victory over the Pac-10 school served as a national resume-booster.
This weekend, BCS conference schools North Carolina and Rutgers are playing FCS teams Georgia Southern and Texas Southern, respectively.
Paterno said athletic director Tim Curley and associate athletic director for football administration Fran Ganter handle most of Penn State's scheduling, and neither presented him with an alternative for Saturday's game.
"If there were an opportunity for us to make some kind of a switch they would have come to me," Paterno said. "They didn't come to me. Either they didn't feel it was appropriate or they didn't feel there was anybody available."
As much criticism as the Lions have taken, as complex managing an athletic budget can be, Penn State remains in a sea of giants, each taking a shot at the same punching bags year after year.
A season after losing 66-10 in State College, Coastal Carolina will try to absorb hits at Clemson on Oct. 31. Next year, the task will take place at West Virginia, and at Georgia a year after that.
"Clemson plays Miami before us and they play Florida State after us," Bennett said. "I don't think they'll be worried about us too much."
But whether at Clemson's Memorial Stadium on Halloween or at Beaver Stadium on Saturday, the potential for an Appalachian State-like upset will live on each time.
"It gives us all hope. That's why you play the games," Spoo said. "I know the odds aren't stacked in our favor, but any time you go out on the football field, strange things can happen."
