I don’t know. These games are like playing the walk ons in a scrimmage. I know it is different, but the son of a friend played football at a d1 school. His sophomore year they started 3-0 playing an FCS game, a horrible Army team and another really bad MAC team. Then they started their conference games…and got absolutely clobbered by North Carolina or somebody. They eventually settled down and had a decent season, but his view was that the first 3 games did nothing but make them over confident and sloppy. Throws they got away with playing Army suddenly the better teams turned into interceptions, with the qb saying where did he come from? Guys that went down on a not great tackle against Maine, are going for an extra 4-5 yards w hen they played league teams, 15 when they played Florida State who was still a power then.
It is fine to play 1-2 cupcakes to work out the kinks early, but when that’s all you play, it is bad for the team, bad for the fans who shell out cash for tickets, and in the event that the regular season goes south, it hurts you for the tournament.
And pal, no problem playing CCSU. We should do it every year to open the season. And no problem playing an HBCU, but for heaven’s sake spread them out and add some A10, American, maybe a mid-level B10 or ACC even to the mix.