Arizona State's Graham: Scheduling '4 easy wins' to make bowl game is 'un-American'

The practice of college football teams scheduling soft non-conference games to increase their chances of obtaining bowl eligibility is frowned upon by many, but none looked more poorly upon it than Arizona State head coach Todd Graham.

"We need to consider what the fans want," Graham said, according to AZFamily.com. "Fans don't want to see you schedule four easy wins, then get two conference wins to get into a bowl game. That's un-American."

Considering the Sun Devils' Pac-12 conference allows only a maximum of three such games, Patterson's position is somewhat understandable.

"Everybody should play nine conference games," Patterson said. "Why nine games instead of eight? Because you play one more conference game that your fans want to see instead of scheduling a team that no one wants to see because you're scheduling wins and don't want to be out of the four-team playoff."

This season, Arizona State's non-conference opponents are Cal Poly, New Mexico, and a neutral site date with Texas A&M.