I think you may also be onto something with the USF and Rice games, even if it's not a two for one.
We play teams like Western Carolina and the Citadel, or Georgia State, to fill up the schedule and have an easy game. So if we sub that for say, Purdue or Duke or Houston or Utah we get a Power 5 but we aren't playing tOSU or USC or Texas.... we are playing a decent team in Power 5 but not the best in the conference. It's a better OOC team than these bottom feeders or Div 2, but still not a huge challenge. If you have Rice or USF or Cal you are also going to recruiting hot beds the year you are on the road. Even if you can't be the host team your coaches can do eval and recruit the end of the week prior to the game?