How far in advance do schools schedule their non-conference games? This past year University of Colorado had many teams on their non-conference schedule that were rather low in their RPI ranking. This has caused Colorado to have an ok, but not stellar RPI despite only losing to Stanford by a touchdown, USC & UCLA by one goal, both games were very close. They did however have ties against ASU, Arizona, and Colorado State (RPI well above 100).
I'd say that most top conference schools already are committed to schedules about two years in advance -- i.e., right now, their schedules are mostly set for 2019 and 2020. They might have 1 or 2 non-conference games yet to schedule each year. At least one reason for this is that for a lot of non-conference games, there is a home-and-away contract so if they play someone at home or away, then a year or two or occasionally more down the road, they'll play them again at away or home. One of the challenges for coaches is that they have to anticipate what the strength of potential future opponents will be some time down the road. And, they have to anticipate how difficult the non-conference schedules for those opponents will be, since the opponents' winning percentages are an important part of the RPI. Regarding that Colorado's games with USC and UCLA were close 1-goal difference games, I think fans place too much emphasis on how close or not close games were. At least for NCAA Tournament decision-making purposes, my bet is that goal differential gets minimal, if any, consideration.
The Colorado cup automatically handcuffs Danny’s scheduling. He could help the team out by scheduling an acc or sec team. Some games are scheduled 2 years out for home and aways
With the Colorado cup he shouldn’t schedule Utah valley and UTSA. Needs 2-3 power 5 non conference games