For the first time in 15 years, the University of Maine could find itself lining up against a Division I football team.

For the first time ever, the Black Bears may play a nationally-ranked Division I football power if ongoing talks between officials at UMaine and Kansas State are fruitful.

“I guess there are discussions going on with Kansas State about us perhaps coming out there,” said Maine football coach Jack Cosgrove. “We have openings in 2005 and 2006 and we’ve talked about playing that type of game. With who and exactly when is yet to be determined, but I know we’ve made a decision to look at those types of games where you would get a healthy payday.”

That payday is likely between $100,000 and $200,000, in addition to Maine’s travel expenses being taken care of by the home team.

Cosgrove said there are other pluses that make a game like this against a top-flight opponent attractive to his program.

“You provide your players an opportunity to play in a major environment and atmosphere that they, for the most part, only see on TV,” he said. “Our players like the idea of it. They want to be challenged to see how good we are and what our level of play is in comparison to others. A lot of our guys have the I-AA tag on them, but they feel they could be IA players.

“It helps recruiting too. Players are looking for opportunities to play at the highest level they can and something like this makes you take notice of a team that’s doing that.”

Another big positive is the possibility, however slight, of a big upset which could catapult a program like Maine into national prominence. William and Mary played Big 10 Conference member Indiana in its first game last year and lost by just eight points, 25-17, and Villanova defeated Big East member Rutgers 37-19.

Of course, there are disadvantages to playing the big boys.

“It can be a completely positive performance with a win or a loss, but I’ve also seen things like a real good Richmond team, the repeating conference champion, losing two early games to Vanderbilt and Virginia and getting both their top two quarterbacks injured. I think they ended up 4-7 or 3-8,” Cosgrove said. “The injury factor can be a negative because a IA team’s depth is drastically different from a I-AA team.”

Cosgrove cited another example, when Northeastern played Boston College a few years back.

“Northeastern almost beat them in a very close game, but then they went out and lost the next game to UMass 77-0 because they just couldn’t do it two weeks in a row,” he said.

Maine is in position to reap the financial windfall from this kind of deal only because it is one season away from averaging 60 football scholarships per season for three years – a requirement the NCAA and Bowl Championship Series make for Division IA teams playing I-AA teams – for the first time.