When Florida AD Jeremy Foley schedules his non-conference cupcakes, there's rarely a rhyme or reason to who the team actually is. He generally just lines up the lowest bidder and that's that.
However, this weekend's game against Miami University actually had a plan behind it. The game was scheduled shortly before the 2004 season when Miami alum Ron Zook was still the head coach. He wanted to play his alma mater at some point, and I guess 2010 was the earliest opportunity for both schools. I never really pegged Zook as a long-term planner, but here we are with the game finally happening.
Of course, Florida wasn't the only one that's in a much different place now as compared to then. Miami had just gone 13-1 in 2003, led by star quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. It finished on the cusp of the top 10 of the rankings. According to current RedHawks head coach Mike Haywood, the school saw itself "as a team that was headed in the same direction as Boise State."
Clearly things didn't quite pan out the same was for Miami as with Boise, but just imagine if they had. It would have been the only way a highly ranked non-BCS team would ever step foot in the Swamp at this point, and ESPN probably wouldn't have moved the Virginia Tech-Boise State game from mid-season to this weekend.