was still independent, BYU probably would have been more aggressive in filling that opening week spot. But still no guarantee that they would have found a P5 replacement there. (With big 12 schedule it was fine to fill it with Sam Houston.)

So with Tennesse gone, perhaps down to your 0.5 interesting home games and only 3 true P5s on the schedule. 2023 would have been a real G5 schedule.

2018-2022 were the pinnacle of the independent schedules, but it seemed like the quality was going down. Maybe TH had slacked off a little in aggressively scheduling future schedules because he thought a conference invite was in the pipes.