Winning 7 games a year in college football (by playing two in-conference beasts, and 2 out of conference power teams) is not the way to move up in national regard. You need to get 9-10/+ win seasons, and get ranked early due to unblemished schedules (4-0 starts). In the end, teams are not penalized for playing cupcakes early. They might be when the final 4 playoff is being determined, but we are not at that level yet.
I love the fact that the program realizes this, and is scheduling appropriately for the phase we are at in the re-build. We need to get back into the top 25 regularly. After that, we start worrying about strength of scheduling for the playoff system...