re: MSU reaches out to Notre Dame

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Exactly. Gotta find the sweet spot between name recognition and ability to beat you.

Recently (but perhaps not right now for some) this could include UCLA, Washington, K State, WVU, Virginia, UNC, most of the Big 10, etc.

Interesting enough to appease your fan base, good for TV, but pretty winnable. Not sure who fits that mold in the SEC, at least out a couple of years. Ole Miss or Tennessee would be the best bets, I don't think anyone but UT in the Big 6 would be wise at all.

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Eh, I won't pretend that we've had really difficult schedules since 2005 or so (hasn't helped that Michigan has sucked arse since then and SC fell of a cliff when Carroll left), but give us credit...we have historically played the powerhouses of the day as much as we can. Army in the 1940's, Oklahoma in the 1950's (we bookended both sides of their 57 game winning streak), Michigan State 1960's, Alabama in the 1970's, Miami in the 1980's, Florida State in the 1990's.

Historically, our best teams have had very difficult schedules. Our last national title team in 1988 played four of the final top ten. We had tough schedules in 1973, 1977, and 1993 as well. I think that's why a lot of ND fans are clamoring for difficult schedules again and really (really really) want to start playing SEC teams again. We have the talent - hell, we just put 8 players in the draft - but some of the schedules between 2005 and 2011 were putrid and weren't forcing us to raise our game.

Our previous AD was a sniveling cockroach and tried to water down our schedules as much as possible, and with how long it takes contracts to roll off, we're just now getting back to beefed up schedules. We played a fairly difficult schedule last year and have a pretty tough slate this year: Michigan, Stanford, UNC, @ Florida State, @ Arizona State, Louisville, @ Southern Cal. We just rolled off the Oklahoma series and have a 4 game slate with Texas rolling on next year and another series with Michigan State two years later. We'll have one or two of FSU, Clemson, Miami, and VT every year. We have SC and Stanford every year. It looks like this UGA series will get done soon.

Other than UGA, I'd like to play Auburn. We've never played them (only Big 6 we've never played), and I think they'd be a fun opponent. I've been to games at Jordan-Hare, and it's a cool place to play. I'd bet they are the second-most likely team we'd play after UGA.