i'll bet you can't name 3 big time programs who have ever come to RES when it wasn't a conference game in their entire football history.
how many times did usc, ucla, or washington come to RES when they weren't mandated to by a conference agreement?
i looked it up once...and the biggest OOC game to appear at RES was pitt...that's right...from the big east...a conference that no longer even exists.