I think we've come to a consensus that there is nothing gained by getting blasted by a top 10 team which has a greater than 50% chance of happening when Ohio plays the likes of an Ohio State or an Alabama. We go against a team like Clemson and likely we could be competitive with a real shot at winning. Kind of like Tennessee last year. With the MAC being so regional as it is I'd like to see the program go outside of the 500 mile radius and schedule some winnable BCS around the country to get the program more out of the shadow of Big Ten country. Honestly, I don't really care about having a BCS opponent at Peden Stadium. Navy and Marshall will work just as well for bringing fans and attracting local interest as those names you have in the list. Think about the difference between opening with Wofford this season instead of UConn. UConn was 24.7k and Wofford was 23k. It was a difference of 1,700 fans. Marshall will bring far more to Peden than any BCS school and if they could actually get good again it would make it real interesting.

Just throwing this out....Is it difficult for Ohio to get good competition into Athens now that the program is more respectable? 

 Look at Central Michigan, clearly the best MAC team during the past 5 years.  Here is a look at their past out of conference opponents from their website:
10/11     Hampton
09/10     Alcorn State
08/09     Eastern Illinois
07/08     North Dakota State; ARMY
06/07     Boston College
05/06     Indiana
04/05     SE Missouri State

Why would Central not continue to go with the three consecutive years of Indiana, BC, Army?  Once they got very good by MAC standards they revert to some pretty small time opponents--by design or default?  And only one game too.

A couple things as I am late to the party.  Yes our schedule is not the greatest and some years are worse than others, but if we want to guarantee bowl eligibility than thats what we have to schedule for now.  Right now we are a good team, but you need to be building to a greater status before you really start to up the ante, like a Boise or a Utah.  Also remember that scheduling is also based on recruiting, so some games that don't make sense normally make sense when you factor in that we are scheduling games against teams in areas we would like to expand our recruiting, hence trips to Wyoming and Louisiana and even Rutgers next year.  

As for attendance this last weekend I will give it a pass for now, we had over 20K for our other home games and we scheduled this game for Halloween.  For one you will get people who won't want to deal with Athens during Halloween, so less regular folk attend and secondly you have a student population whose main focus has always been on the partying.  And if you factor in that Halloween is a major part to why OU is a ranked party school it doesn't take a genius to expect that the student population was going to be otherwise indisposed.  Especially since we didn't schedule an opponent in which their friends coming into Athens would want to see.

We are still an up and down team, a good team for the MAC, but nowhere near great.  Luckily for us the MAC usually just a has a bunch of good teams and maybe one great team each year.  The plan needs to be for us to become that consistent great team like CMU had been and with a coach in it for the long haul we would have a better chance of keeping that consistency unlike CMU who has had to deal with coaching turnover.  We can complain about the schedule week after week, but to me it seems like Schaus and Frank have a plan for how to turn this program into a great team and right now we are in the building phase.  Now if we get farther along in this process and nothing has changed then by all means bring out the torches.  But for now I am content with more winning seasons than losing seasons, MAC Championship Game appearances, and Bowl invites.  Come back to me after 2-3 more seasons if things haven't changed for the better.

It would help our perception. I can remember when UConn transitioned to 1-A and they played Boston College tough for the first time bringing out a lot of additional fans for that reason when we played them up at Storrs. The perception by the fans by and large is that we are still a mid level MAC team and not a national player. If the record was 8-1 right now we'd probably be sitting in the top 25 and that would have made a huge difference in the Halloween crowd.

[QUOTE/]Luckily for us the MAC usually just a has a bunch of good teams... .[/QUOTE]

Oh, how I wish the MAC really did have a "bunch of good teams".   Other than two or three decent teams at the top, this conference is putrid this year.  And that's become the rule rather than the exception in recent years... 

In my opinion, this is the single largest reason that the LOVE can point to the "strength of schedule" as an argument...

Honestly, the conference (as a whole) is terrible, and since we play most of those teams for the majority of our schedule, then it's a fait d'accompli that the "strength of schedule" is poor.

Peace,
-john

The MAC has always been the weakest link and last option to play in IA (FBS).  Now its a toss up between the MAC and Sun Belt.  The difference is we are betting most of the teams vs. losing.  While you may think the conference is terrible...try telling that to Akron, EMU and BG.  They are now where we used to be.  The quality of play in the MAC is far better today than it was 20 - 25 years ago.