We have to water down the schedule because Boals can't coach. We will lose to Kent State three times by double digits but beat KSU-Tuscarawas by 100 to save his job. Briggs and Stratten impressive. Boals knows he can't beat Youngstown State either so it this cream puff. We have fewer non-conference games and we waste those games on this crap. None of these games helps with an at-large bid. Isn't the goal to be a top 100 program and get on the bubble. This basketball program continues to slide. We are becoming Ball State in basketball. How does this schedule prepare for the MAC and be a title contender. We scheduled Purdue because Purdue-Fort Wayne was booked. Purdue Fort-Wayne had better team that Ohio last year. So we probably too much of a risk. We should be playing Marshall, Dayton, Xavier, Ohio State, Cincinnati, and West Virginia.
It worked out for Miami last year
Yeah, not a well times rant about scheduling. I think it is clear stacking losses against P5 programs is NOT the way to generate an at-large resume OR generate buzz for your team.
But ignoring that, or that your rant is all over the place, you're overstating things a bit. We all agree 2 fake opponents is one too many, but beyond that it is not an unreasonable schedule. We don't know the Jacksonville opponents, but seems likely we will have one similar opponent and one lesser opponent.
Big boy (1) - Purdue
Peers (4) - S Alabama, SBC2, Robert Morris, NMSU/UIC
Lower level (3) - NC A&T, Morehead St, Rice/Lamar
Slaughterings (2) - KSU-Tusc, B&S
I would like to see one from the bottom level move up to the next tier, but this is not far off what I would call a good design - 1 Power opponent and 1 awful opponent. 4 "peers" that duplicate top half of the MAC type battles, 4 "lower level" that give us a chance to stack some wins but also tested to some extent, and look at around a 7-3 OOC with SOS likely in the 150-200 range. You could argue for a bit more but it's not that far off.