Villanova won it all in 2009. They've had a Furmanesque fall from prominence (picked 9th in the CAA this year). I think routinely playing the CAA is a must because so many voters and FCS media types consider it the premier conference- or at least one of the power 3.
Even going .500 against CAA foes for 3-4 years would start turning heads. Not only would it increase the likelihood of our getting ranked higher (which I believe we all agree helps our playoffs outlook fair or not), but it also would get us familiar with teams we must best in order to advance to a quarter or semi-final.
Colgate was a great opponent to schedule despite their belonging to a relatively weak (Patriot) conference. But after we clobbered them up in NY 45-14, they wanted badly to avoid the beatdown they'd likely receive in Greenville so they took the bad weather report as an excuse to renege on the home-and-home agreement. Sly move for them, as it allowed the narrative of Colgate being a power (they went 10-1 reg season allowing only 4 defensive touchdowns all year- 2 against a ranked Army team) and received a seed e.i. , first round bye. Granted, they made a last-second FG to beat JMU in the 2nd round, a team that was injury-ridden, had just lost its head coach, and had an uncharacteristic 5 turnovers, but it was still seen by many to be an upset. (Rant over. Maybe.)
So, if we are indeed getting back to the dominance that we used to enjoy, I figure we have just a couple chances to schedule OOC competition against good-but-not-great teams before they realize there's not much to be gained by losing to us. CAA and good Southland teams like JaxSt will soon be our best bet I think.
Of course, if we manage to go 2-0 against FBS this year, we won't get any good OOC to schedule us- and I might be ok with the trade-off