UTEP coach Mike Price figures to play 16 freshmen in the Miners' first meeting with Texas since 1933.

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It's never been so good to be bad at college football.

Small-time football schools are demanding record amounts from major programs including Ohio State, LSU and Virginia Tech for games outside their conferences, driving up prices 43 percent over the past five years for the top 10 public schools in the 2007 final Bowl Championship Series rankings, according to contracts.

The cost soared to as much as $850,000 because the National Collegiate Athletic Association allowed teams in 2006 to start scheduling a 12th game to increase revenue. The extra game set off a bidding war between football powerhouses that compete for weak, non-conference opponents to play at home early in the season. Typically, the big schools get an alumni-pleasing win and the weak sister gets a major portion of its athletic budget.

Contracts for the top 10 public schools in last season's final Bowl Championship Series standings showed the average payout for non-conference opponents rose to $456,277, compared with $320,144 in 2005.

An extreme example: Virginia Tech, third in the final BCS standings, will pay Western Kentucky $850,000 for their game Oct. 4. Its most expensive non-conference game in 2005 was $265,000 for a home date with Marshall.

It might not be as painful as it sounds for the big guys.

Virginia Tech athletic director Jim Weaver said successful football programs with 80,000-seat stadiums can generate $4 million in sales from a typical home game. Those schools can pay $1 million guarantees and still generate substantial income for their programs.

Cal (1-0) beat Michigan State 38-31 in its season opener last week. Washington State (0-1) stumbled to a 39-13 loss to Oklahoma State in Seattle in a game that laid bare the Cougars' lack of depth and poor special teams play.

But Cal coach Jeff Tedford is worried about taking on a historically tough opponent with a new coach, Paul Wulff, in Cal's earliest Pac-10 game since 1993.

"There are a lot of unknowns playing a conference game so early, especially against someone you don't have a lot of history with," Tedford said. "That makes it more difficult to play a conference game that early when there's a new coach."

Washington State has won 14 of its past 16 home openers, including seven in a row.

Running back Broderick Green said he has been feeling left out of USC's tailback mix and needed to speak with Coach Pete Carroll. They met for 10 minutes Wednesday.

It might have come at linebacker Rey Maualuga's expense Thursday.

Green took a handoff outside and flattened Maualuga in practice, prompting Carroll to call it the "play of the day." The 6-2, 235-pound back said Carroll made it clear during their talk that he wants Green to be a "hammer."

"I felt like (the meeting) helped big time," Green said.

Green, a redshirt freshman, had one carry for zero yards in USC's victory against Virginia. As a team, USC gained 224 yards on 40 carries. Green is one of six scholarship tailbacks for the Trojans.

The phrase "ne'er the twain shall meet" must have been conceived with Texas and UTEP in mind.

"It's 580 miles from here," marveled Mack Brown, coach of No. 10 Texas. "It's almost like it's not in our state."

And conceptually, UTEP hasn't been in Texas' football universe. The schools have met only twice, in 1933 and 1930, both in Austin, when UTEP was known as Texas College of Mines. But they meet Saturday, and in El Paso, no less.

A lot of other Texas schools have occupied the Longhorns' time through the years, but not UTEP. In the Southwest Conference days, Texas would schedule North Texas, and today, outside the Big 12, the Longhorns take on Rice and Houston. But until now, not UTEP.

So, any way the Miners can compete with Texas? Probably not. UTEP coach Mike Price says his team is playing 16 freshmen.

After a 16-8 start and bowl games his first two years, Price has seen some slippage. He's now 25-24 in El Paso and the Miners have tended to fade late in the year. Saturday's loss was UTEP's seventh straight.