Miami, Florida, Florida State, Nebraska & West VA
for winning important early season non conference victories against respectively
Florida A&M, Cental Florida, Troy, Nicholls State & Eastern Washington
Those games were important to the *patsies* from a financial standpoint. Nebraska paid $750,000 to Nicholls State for them to go to Lincoln for a beating in the woodshed. Those teams dont get to go to big bowl games with payouts in the millions so they have to schedule D-1A teams for their paydays.
Also, many of the top college programs have difficulty getting other top teams to agree to scheduling contracts. As an example, in the late 80's - early 90's Nebraska was trying to negotiate a home/home series with the Miami Hurricanes. Miami refused to go to Lincoln to play (Miami has never won in Lincoln).
Another aspect of the scheduling woes athletic directors face is when a team backs out of their contract it can be
very difficult to find a D-1A replacement opponent, especially so when you consider many teams schedules are set years in advance.
At least none of those teams you listed lost to a D-1AA team like Colorado did during their opening game last week. How embarrassing for Colorado.
Just curious, what team are you a fan of?