No one wants to watch a blowout.

They happen in all sports, but they are much more common in college football with the parity that has made the sport laden in mismatches.

Teams, particularly in the six Bowl Championship Series conferences, have been scheduling opponents from the Football Championship Subdivision — formerly known as Division I-AA, the lower tier of Division I college football. This practice has been taking place for years — so much that a rule that used to be in effect made it so wins against FCS schools did not count toward bowl eligibility.

This year, Iowa State scheduled one of its three nonconference games against Western Illinois, an FCS team from the Missouri Valley Conference. While playing Northern Iowa as it did last year merits some sentiment, since both teams are in the same state, Iowa State does not have any ties to Western Illinois, nor have the teams ever faced each other before.

When some of us looked at the ISU football schedule this season, Sept. 15 stuck out like a sore thumb. A season-opening bout against Conference USA’s Tulsa and a Cy-Hawk rivalry game against Iowa is followed by a meaningless matchup against a lower-tier FCS team in Western Illinois; is this some kind of joke?

While we understand the need for a “break” in the schedule — especially in the cutthroat Big 12 Conference — these games against FCS teams do nothing for raising interest in the early weeks of the college football season.

Savannah State, a little school of roughly 4,500 students in Savannah, Ga., made national headlines during the first two weeks of the season. In the Tigers’ opening season game, they were beaten down by Oklahoma State 84-0.

84-0.

Savannah State was then given a 70-point advantage by the Las Vegas gambling gurus in its second-week game against Florida State.

The good news: Savannah State covered the spread. The bad news: It still lost 55-0.

While Savannah State got paid a hefty $860,000 for getting blown out in the first two weeks of the season, according to The New York Times, was it really worth it for Oklahoma State or Florida State to beat the living piss out of a lesser team in their early season games?

If either Oklahoma State or Florida State goes to a BCS bowl this year, will the coach be crediting an early season win against a no-name FCS team as a major reason for the team’s success leading up to the bowl? Absolutely not — they are going to be talking about victories against the Virginia Techs or the Oklahomas in the heat of a conference race — the games we actually tune in to and care about.

Vegas does not even have the line available for Western Illinois’ trip to Jack Trice Stadium, but we can probably guess it has to be at least by three touchdowns, if not a lot more.

Western Illinois does not get as nice of a payday as Savannah State — only $350,000, said ISU Steve Malchow, senior associate athletic director, in an email to the Daily — but its relevance as an opponent to Iowa State is not any less insignificant.

Of course FCS teams do upset FBS (both BCS and non-BCS) teams — eight upsets have already taken place this season, two of which involved teams (Pittsburgh, Colorado) that play in BCS conferences — so we are not saying the two sects should never be allowed to tangle.

But unless Iowa State is facing an FCS juggernaut like Northern Iowa or North Dakota State, many could honestly care less about this game.

May our cynicism be taken with a grain of salt, but Western Illinois adds nothing to Iowa State’s schedule but an easy beatdown two weeks before conference play begins.

So have fun watching Iowa State beat Western Illinois into the ground, even though no one wants to watch a blowout.