Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I just don't get this at all. Sure, in a vacuum, waking up on a Saturday about to play Mizzou is a lot more exciting than waking up on a Saturday to play Kent State. And you might not care about an appearance in the Reliaquest Bowl or Music City Bowl or Guaranteed Rate Bowl. But this side of the argument has to understand how it affects the perception of our program. Recruits want to win games. Recruits want to get out of Champaign in December and January to go somewhere warm and get wined and dined on a bowl trip. Recruits aren't going to say "well, it sucks I never made a bowl game in college, but I'm sure glad that we played Mizzou in September even though we already play a gauntlet B1G schedule that included Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, USC, Oregon, and Wisconsin." Our national perception matters now more than ever. We want to be seen as a player at the table, and we get that perception by being a winning program and being talked about after Thanksgiving. Plus there are the extra practices to help make the team better for the following season.
We can choose to ride a high horse and play a really hard non-con schedule where we go 2-1 or 1-2 and then get our butts kicked during the B1G season because we aren't recruiting at the same pace as the other teams in the conference, and then we will be comfortably in the 3-5 win bucket we are all sick of being in. We will continue to suffer in recruiting, even compared to teams outside of the Power 2. Then, when it comes time to decide who is in the top level of play when the B1G and SEC break away from the NCAA, we will get left behind with the rest of the plains states schools like Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State and other teams like Boston College, Wake Forest, etc. Now you may think that you'd rather compete in football that conference rather than against the Ohio States, Michigans, etcs. of the world, but if we aren't getting those B1G TV checks, it won't just be the football team that suffers. It will be the whole athletic program, including basketball. Josh and the DIA has openly acknowledged this, that big investment in the football program is necessary priority for the good of the health of every Illini team.
I will say, if they change the 6 win rule for making bowl games to accommodate these huge B1G and SEC super conferences, which I think there is a solid chance they do, then I may come around to the other way of thinking. Maybe a loss to Mizzou doesn't hurt our bowl selection chances while a win against an FCS school doesn't help us. Then certainly, we can start scheduling big boy teams. But right now, the system is set up where we need to go 3-0 in noncon for a bowl game, and our scheduling should reflect that being a priority for the health of our football program and the whole athletic department.