Our conference is exposing itself to additional losses as opposed to to Clemson playing the citadel. In a hypothetical, we could have payed Weber st and not played asu because, we, in this hypothetical world, would just play 8 conference games giving us less chance at a loss. You may have noticed who the sec and ACC were playing against the last two weeks. Clemson could have played one more conference game which could have been Miami or Smu, etc.

You could insert Colorado, Iowa st, etc if it helps you understand the discussion better.

So yes we could avoid those games by playing one less conference game and putting in an easy game.