Schedules in college football will never be perfectly fair. There are too many variables. Teams we expect to be good fall apart mid-season. A major injury or two can have huge effects.
And still... there is absolutely NO reason that we don't incorporate a standardized formula for making schedules as even as possible across the Conferences.
THE FORMULA:
8 games against conference divisional foes. (e.g. If you are in the Mid-East upper division, you will play 8 games against other Mid-East upper division teams.)
Computer algorithms will use previous year records, and projected power ratings (based on returning starters, etc.) to calculate the most balanced schedules possible.
1 Same-Division rivalry game. Each team can select one rival in their division (upper or lower) to play every year (Rivals can be in the same conference or in a different conference).
1 Out-of-Conference Bragging Rights game. Each year, similarly ranked teams will play each other across conferences. (e.g. The 6th ranked team in the Big West Conference will play the 6th ranked team in the Gold Plains Conference, etc.)
1 In-Conference opposite-division game. To get a clear picture of how the lower division teams match up with the upper division teams, each team in the upper division team will play one game against a lower division team in their same conference each year. These games will also be used to balance out any imbalances in the relative difficulty of schedules up until this point.
1 Dealer's Choice. Every team will select one game of their choosing to play each year (against a lesser in-state team or against any other team). Since each school chooses these games, the difficulty or ease of this one scheduled opponent will be a mute point.
12 total regular season games. Every upper division team will play 10 upper division games, 1 lower division game and one game against an opponent of any caliber. Similarly, every lower division team will play 10 lower division games, 1 upper division game and one game against an opponent of any caliber.