I think 2006 was 2 games at high majors without a return game and was the last time that really counts. 1998 would have been, I think, the time prior to that. I think after the Solich era really got going and attendance got to be decent we never intentionally did that. Nearly every single year has been one payout road game, one payin home game, one home side of a home and home, and one road side of a home and home. The times that this didn't happen were related to COVID seasons affecting contracts and UC cancelling. The last game at UC was supposed to be the start of a home and home. UC ended up paying a penalty and buying that game so we unintentionally played 2 payout games forcing us to spend that money and buy two payin home games in 2026. If we play 2 away buy games we will necessarily play only 5 home games some year (unless we buy two home games another year like this year) and I think season ticket sales have been good enough over the last 20 years that they don't want to tick off long term customers with 5 home games.

Basketball can get away with having two buy games some years and buy other D1 games or play 2 non D1 games and then only play parts of home and home series other years other than one home non-D1 game. There are usually a couple of neural sites games and the number of home games, while very similar from year to year, isn't always EXACTLY the same number. Football doesn't really have these kind of options because there are so few non-conference games, so few FBS teams, and the money involved in buying or selling a game is so much more. I am sure the season ticket overall revenue is a lot more in football as well. They have to be very careful not to mess up the pattern hence the pattern is basically always:

1 home part of a home and home
1 road part of a home and home
1 road game paid for by a P4
1 home game against an FCS paid for by Ohio
4 home conference games
4 road conference games

which makes 6 home and 6 road games every season.

Seems like you may not know what "should" means. It's almost like Ohio69 was suggesting we do something different going forward.

I think that playing 4 payout games now would be logistically difficult even if we were to say that home ticket sales and bowl eligibility and such are relatively a non issue (which we won't). I think that we are reaching a point where the math won't allow this. P4's are only playing 3 non-conference games, the ratio of G's to P's in the FBS has increased in recent years, Most P's want to play a non-conference game vs. another P, most P's are willing to play FCS's if the payout required is somewhat less..... I think that there are probably going to be about 1 or maybe just over 1 payout games available per G on average going forward. If one G wants to successfully hoard 4 of them every year they would probably have to competitively drop their payout dollar expectation. This might cause Bobcat Love's head to explode.

It kind of goes with the math changing on how a lot of basketball talking heads didn't believe that a school like Miami could try all year and not succeed in landing a P contract on their basketball schedule. Just because the math meant that this was basically almost always possible 15 years ago when conferences played less conference games and there were less D1 teams it definitely does not mean that you can just choose to want to play 1 or 2 P's now and always succeed in getting that.