A LONG ROAD SLOG TO THE TITLE GAME.

At the beginning of the year, that was the Packers, with a happy ending.

At year's end, it's the Wayne State Warriors, who impressed the Division II selection committee to secure the final playoff seeding and make what USA Today characterizes as either an improbable or a magical run.

This opportunity has been a long time coming for coach Paul Winters. A former assistant at Akron, Wisconsin and Toledo, he took over at Wayne State before the 2004 season. The Warriors were 4-16 his first two years, but he's had only one losing season since.

Two Mid-American programs, a Big (12) Ten program, and fifteen minutes of fame.

The Warriors play in a 6,000-seat venue at the west end of the school's Detroit campus. Needless to say, this isn't Michigan or Michigan State. Wayne State's roster is filled almost exclusively with players from Michigan and Ohio.

Since national recruiting is almost nonexistent, it's important for Wayne State to keep the players that do join the program.

It's a million dollar business, although not as expensive as a Michigan or a Toledo, and apparently not expected to be a fundraising opportunity (are you listening, Northern Illinois?)

This season has been the most successful ever for the Wayne State University football team, but don't look for the victories to translate into a windfall of cash or a move up to Division I.

That doesn't mean the school isn't seeking whatever financial help it can get for its Division II football program -- which operates on a budget of just $195,000.

The team's success will be used to cultivate WSU's donor and corporate base for both sports and academics, said WSU Athletic Director Rob Fournier.

"We'll use this as a greeting card to go to people," he said. The athletic department has been buying spots on the radio to appeal to alumni and donors.

In Division II, optimism is tempered with realism.

Playing on television and pride are the rewards for a Division II champion. And unlike Division I bowl games, which come with payouts to participating schools in the hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars, there is no institutional payday for the schools.

"Competitive success at the Division II level rarely leads to a financial windfall," said Dave O'Brien, editor of College Sports Business News and director of the sports management program at Drexel University

"Increased institutional pride, engaged on-campus students, enhanced alumni involvement/giving patterns and a modest increase in applications may all result from on the field success; but, with limited, if any, media coverage and/or television deals, corporate support is very limited."

That might not be all bad, with teams paying for the privilege of playing in bowls (once the sponsor guarantees are netted against the incremental costs).

Some things don't change in Division II.  Money is still fungible.

WSU's surprisingly small football budget covers travel, equipment, uniforms, meals, recruiting and everything else, Fournier said.

"I would argue that we get a whole helluva lot out of our $200,000," Fournier said.

Salaries for the coaches and player scholarships come out of the athletic department's nearly $5 million budget, which covers all of WSU's 15 programs.

The price of admission to a higher division is beyond Wayne's means.

Wayne State offers the full 36 football scholarships allowed under Division II rules, but it divides them into halves and quarters so that the nearly 100 team members get some financial help. No player has a full scholarship.

A Division I football program offers 86 full scholarships, but don't look for the Warriors to move up any time soon. The cost and bureaucratic hurdles aren't worth it, Fournier said.

"It's almost financially impossible to move to Division I because of the different constraints," he said. "The application just to go Division I is almost a million dollars. In today's economy, it just wouldn't make a lot of sense to be spending money like that."

There's also been a moratorium for several years, ending in 2012, on schools moving to Division I for football. 

We have much to look forward to. The positional arms race is on hold for the moment, but I expect the conference realignment frenzy, and the filings of applications to move up, to resume just as the current election cycle winds down.