I don't have a definite opinion that it's a bad idea to schedule App. St. twice in one year, along with all those other road game. I don;t even have a definite opinion about our low profile schedule. Before I make a decision I'd need more information.
Here are the questions I'd ask of the scheduling powers that be:
1) Was there a stragtegic decision made to downgrade the profile of our opponents?
2) I like the Red and I'm glad we are keeping it. Nothing wrong with 2 easy wins. However, I liked it more when just about everyone else on our schedule was an NIT or NCAA level team(and we were better) so we really needed those 2 easy, early wins. My second question (or series of questions) is about how we put the Red together.
How hard is it to find teams that we don't have to give home-and-homes to get them to come here for the Red? Clearly not every team in the Red gets a return game, are we paying those other teams? Have we always paid those teams, or is it a case where budget cuts or increases in payments for home games for other schools have priced us out of buying that tourney without having to give a return trip (let alone buying other games)? Basically, what's changed in the way we put our schedule together that we now give return games to teams where we once didn't?
3)It seems like we aren't buying home games and we aren't getting paid for road games. Basically everything is home-and-home. The result is that after the two BB&T games and the one big-name road game that we give as a return for the BB&T, leave us with 8 to play with. If everything is done home-and-home, is there a plan down the road to get us more home games than 4 (along with 5 road games) or is that something us fans should get used to because it's a long range plan.
4)Is there a plan to upgrade the home-and-homes, like we are doing with UNCC this year, rather than continue playing the Towsons, FIUs and Appys once Hobbs builds us back to a postseason team?
5) Has our schedule complied the past two years with A10 guidleines. If not, what is the financial impact and how does that affect our attempts to construct a series?
6) Is getting a bigger name team to play us home-and-home even an option? For eample, we had South Florida and Teas A&M like that. Those teams aren't neccesarily better for our RPI than a good team from a crappy conference, but they are better as far as eposure because of their conference and location. Is there a specific reason we've taken the direction we've taken?
7) What was the thought behind going home-and-home with Towson, BU, FIU, Appy, Binghamton, etc? Was it a case where we ranked everyone we'd like to play and those low-profile team were all we could get? Are there personal relationships, recruiting goals, etc. that affected this?
8) Why haven't we been in an eempt tourney in the last few years?
9) When (if) we try to schedule bigger name teams, do we offer them 2 for 1s? Is our reputation still as a team that is too dnagerous for a big-name team to play because they have nothing to lose?
10) Why don't we look at supposed inferior programs as ones aganist which we have nothing to gain by playing them, the same way BCS schools look at us?
11) Why is it that smaller-profile programs do occasionally get Big-name BCS schools to come to their building? What is it that they are doing that we aren't (or are unable to)?