For those of you who are relatively new here, understand that Ron Strollo is an accountant by training and by inclination. His business plan for the OOC schedule is to maximize the yield from the P5 game while paying out as little as possible for the two FCS home games. That means games against phony FCS teams from the Pioneer Conference and semi-phony FCS teams from the NEC. I hate this. Most of you hate this. But it will not change.
Why not schedule D2 teams? We can't, thanks to the bizarre world of the NCAA. It would be suicide since the NCAA refuses to count, for playoff selection purposes, any wins against D2 opponents, no matter how worthy. Instead, the NCAA grants the Pioneer League an automatic berth in the playoffs and fantasizes that wins against that conference count toward your playoff resume. You can't blame Strollo for this one.