They are all bad, they are becoming more frequent and some conferences are worse than others and using the excuse of more conference games (against watered down conference teams like Missouri and Maryland) to justify it. Why are more games featuring good teams playing bad ones a good thing (I ask that you remove your SEC hat before answering). Again, I can't agree with the premise that there's this wave of additional crap games that weren't there before, so I don't really have a question to answer. With a 12 game schedule, the overwhelming majority of teams play 1-2 gimme games(FCS or low-level conference schools), 1-2 games against mid-level conferences(MAC, whatever C-USA or WAC call themselves now, etc), and a game against a BCS conference team. I don't find this a bad or undesirable outcome, partially because this has always been the case. There are variances from year to year and some teams may break that pattern in either direction consistently, but there's no systemic degradation of non-con scheduling that I can see. If a team adds a 9th conference game, that doesn't make the schedule worse, by definition. The outrage seems like veiled pride in Notre Dame's scheduling practices or irritation that others don't do the same as they do. Yes. Everything I do think or breathe is ND football. When I'm eating Cheerios at 9am and turn on ESPN I'm bemoaning the inferiority of Big 10 U playing little sisters of the poor. It's not that I just like college football and wish there were more interesting games as there were when I was a teenager. Has to be some weird ND bias that you want to cast upon me. Sorry but that's a [expletive] stupid excuse.