Michigan just announced its 2007 schedule.

For the first time I can remember, we play a Division I-AA team, Appalachian State. Who? It's embarrassing. Surely we can do better.

I don't even like it when Michigan plays MAC schools. We never used to play MAC schools. I was surprised in 1995 to watch us beat Miami of Ohio. Before 1995, the last time Michigan played a MAC school was sometime before 1954 (I got bored of looking). In fact, we frequently played strong out of conference schedules. Until 1995, the last "weak" school we played was Cal State Long Beach (?????), in 1987. In every other year, we had three real opponents. In 1986, we beat Notre Dame, Oregon State, and Florida State (plus Hawaii at the end of the year).

Unfortunately, those days seem to be over. But this is ridiculous. The last time we *didn't* play a MAC school was 1999. Ugh. I think we should play Notre Dame every year, plus one tough team from a power conference like Oregon, and then fill up the schedule with teams like service academies or Cincinnati. I have to think that teams like that would come to Ann Arbor for the exposure (and money) and it would sure beat watching a MAC school.