The home games with Iowa St in 2023 and Syracuse in 2021 are nice for fans, but they are not a good deal financially for Ohio. Home and Home deals with Syracuse and Iowa State will not bring in a pay day for the Bobcats. Don't be shocked if one of those Syracuse or Iowa State games get scratched. Those deals were negotiated by the former AD as was the Cincy game. The Bearcats shoved the Ohio game on the back burner and are now getting paid huge bucks to play at Notre Dame in 2021. Don't hold your breath on the Bearcats traveling to Athens any time soon. Playing at Illinois in 2025 will bring in over a million and the pay day at Nebraska in 2026 should be much larger than the Illinois game.
Those games are no worse than scheduling Texas State, Idaho, Louisiana, etc. We follow the same scheduling pattern every year: home game vs FCS, buy game at P5, two home/home vs G5/low P5 - one home and one away. We have buy games with Northwestern and Rutgers in 21/23 respectively.