There are a very limited number of out of conference football scheduling opportunities, especially now with larger conferences, and most schedules are filled several years in advance anyway. You get about 4 games a year out of conference, and it's a good idea to try to predict out and balance those 4 games with competition on the schedule that you are confident you can beat at least two of them. Hathaway was a disaster for scheduling after the debacle with the Notre Dame series. Seemed almost like he just decided not to give a hoot after that all fell apart. We were very fortunate to hold on to the Michigan home game. Tennessee has backed out of their scheduled series from several years ago.
Manuel has done a good job so far of scheduling, targeting the remaining independants other than Notre Dame (BYU, and Army) and holding on to series with Virginia and now a new one with Illinois. He got us a home and home with Boise St - a program that still has name recognition and not a slouch. Inbetween we've scheduled out in advance with programs like Stony Brook this year, Villanova next....to balance out the strength of schedule (Virginia/Illinois represent 'tough' outs - while a Stony Brook represents a theoretical 'easy' out in scheduling)
Long story short - a football series with Michigan St would be great but it's not realistic. It's highly unlikely because we don't match up well scheduling wise. Big 10 only has 3 games OOC a year now, and their schedules are pretty much full for the next several years, and probably won't open up for a program like ours if they were to open up because we - hopefully will continue to represent at tough out to other programs, rather than an easy out - when it comes to scheduling.