I understand why coaches do it.

Scheduling weaker opponents is a great way to fine tune plays and get some backup players into the game. But you have to draw the line somewhere. There’s a point where beating up on a high school team in a college uniform actually starts to hurt.

As I watched the ISU volleyball team make a mockery of the University of Missouri-Kansas City Kangaroos – you’re kind of asking for it when your mascot is a kangaroo – I tried to understand why the match even had to take place.

UMKC was 0-7 and had struggled to be competitive in the early season. Iowa State is a Big 12 Conference program on the rise with a senior-filled lineup. I didn’t even have to show up to know what was going to happen. We killed them.

I’m by no means attacking coach Christy Johnson or the volleyball team, but rather college sports in general. It happens in every sport. In football, the big schools even pay the little ones to show up and lose.

Schedules have to be filled and win totals must be reached to ensure post-season play, but playing a quality opponent is a better way to prepare a team for the trials of a long situation.

At Wednesday’s game, the entire team got to play. Freshman Jamie Hagerman saw her first action of the year and recorded two kills. Although there’s definitely something to be said for in-game experience, it would benefit the team more to be playing teams that are at least at the same general skill level. Then, the starters can keep working together and develop a chemistry that can carry the team deep into postseason play. It could even be argued that it would be more valuable to the bench players to just keep competing against the first team in practice, because I know that would be better competition.

UMKC got an even worse deal than Iowa State did. Not only was the game too one-sided for the Kangaroos to get quality play in, but they had to take a emotional blow as they got swept in front of the fans and parents who made the trip.

It even hurts the athletic department as a whole. Fewer than 600 people showed up, as opposed to last Wednesday’s game against Northern Iowa. Although many of those fans showed up because of the rivalry, a better opponent would have helped draw in more casual fans and fill Hilton a little more.

It is sad when the most competitive part of the night is the fan competition during the intermission – the CRU team edged out the Superfans in a intense game of catch-the-serve-in-a-basket, 5-4.

Will this column change schedules in the future? I’d like to think I am that important, but realistically, it’s not probable.

But it might make a coach think twice before scheduling some team he or she knows they can beat up on. Better opponents are a win for everyone, for both the fans and the players.

Just remember the one cardinal rule when scheduling early season opponents: Make sure it’s not the EA Sports All-Stars.

– Nick Paulson is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Minnetonka, Minn.