Eh, unpopular opinion, but I actually think scheduling a weak *** non-conference schedule is part of the answer. Look at how a team like Wake changed their program’s perspective. They have had a good run with Clawson the last few years, but outside of an 11 win season, most are 8 or 9 win seasons(which is a good year). However, not every 8 or 9 win season is equal. No one is thinking about their non conference schedule, but if you look at it, it’s ridiculous. It’s basically a guaranteed 4 wins. Last year they went 4-5 against real competition, but the perception was much better than that because its an 8 win season. This perception works. People here wanted Clawson, but felt like there was no way he would leave Wake, when in reality we had a better ACC record than they did last year. So, I have to ask, do you actually want what Wake has? We play Georgia every year and we have to play Notre Dame every few seasons with that dumb contract they have with the ACC, so we could easily schedule three cupcakes most seasons and no one would bat an eye. Traditionally, we have a much more successful football program than Wake. This would help us build our program in the same way it has worked for Wake. They aren’t the only program doing this, either. Just a solid ACC comparison. Quit scheduling the Ole Miss’s and start scheduling more Bowling Green’s and rack up a few 8 win seasons and get the program back to stability before we start trying big non-conference games. There is no shame in this. This is a smart step in building a program. If we have three penciled in wins at the beginning of the season, that means we just need to play .500 ball in conference to win 7 games, regardless of the outcome of the mutt game. Let’s just do it a few years. We’ll start flirting with nine wins and then when we’re ready, we can go out of conference against another P5 team and show people what we’re made of.
A couple 8-9 win seasons ultimately does more than playing on a “bigger” stage and losing, especially if we’re losing 48-23.
Florida played its first non-conference regular season game out of The Swamp in 32 years this year in Utah. We don’t have to go that extreme, but this is how you build a program.