Oh, please, educate me on the strength of Boise and/or Appalachian State's schedules. Pleeeeease?
Well sir, there's these things called high schools. They're full of 14-to-18 year olds. They range in size from under 100 to usually just short of 5,000 (I think there are a few that are bigger). And their brand of football is a rather fascinating tapestry across states and classes, public and private. There are many rich subcultures involved, some great, some less so.
Then there's these things called colleges. Diverse range of courses, cater to folks over 18 for the most part, pricier etc. They range in size too, and quality of football. There's mid-major, and FCS, and D-II, and D-III and NAIA (which feels close to some high schools in some spots), all sorts of odd worlds unto themselves. And many have multi-million dollar athletic departments. The smallest in the Mountain West had $31 million in athletic revenue last year and has 33,000 students. Heck of a high school right there.
Now I know what you're saying. You're staying a Mountain West or Sun Belt slate is not the quality of an ACC or Pac-12 one. And setting aside a school's lack of control there, I fully agree. Those schedules are not as rigorous. But when we call them "high school" schedules, we announce to the world that this sport isn't a teeming an interesting ecosystem, but instead about 66 or so teams and high schools, depending on your thoughts on the AAC. (I suppose one could close the circle further and only care for the 15 or so teams with a real shot at a title each season).
And that's, to a degree, life in this sport. We assume things we're not interested in should be reduced to a sort of nothingness. I chose to christen this know-nothingness. Did you know a top-5 NFL draft pick came in from high school? Same with Jerry Rice. Florida and Michigan lost to high schools in the past decade plus.
(One spot this used to be really bad was with the old Harbaugh-Urban resume debates. Because things were bad right before each guy got to his first two jobs, you woulda thought they founded all those programs from scratch)