A few things: First, NC games vs Yale and QC are nothing to hang your hat on. Maine hosted Q in the first game last year and there was a ton of grief for scheduling such a lightweight. It turned out Q played in the national championship. Second, many of these games are @ western teams. Are they going to reciprocate next season? Third, some of these games are scheduled so western teams can beat up on their eastern brethren. I'm looking particularly at UVM @ ND and UMA and MC playing Denver.
A combination of factors combined to cripple Maine's NC schedule. Most publicly, the budget wasn't there for a western trip when they were already traveling to Indiana and Florida. In years past it wouldn't have been a big deal but (as of 2011) revenues were flat while expenses were rising. The league expansion caught several teams flat-footed (thus so many of them are playing each other in NC games) so getting to 34 was a challenge. The biggest reason, IMO, is the effect on pairwise. Maine is not so bad it can be counted on as two easy wins (especially at Alfond) but not good enough to be worth RPI points even if a team loses to Maine. If Maine proves to be average or slightly below, a loss to Maine would be highly detrimental in the RPI, whereas a win will be worth almost nothing either. Thus the only winning move is not to play and Maine's NC schedule blows. As a fan its very disappointing and makes it hard to justify ticket prices. Ironically, this works out very well for the team, as they can rebuild amid games against Bentley and AIC rather than going to Minnesota, Denver or Grand Forks to get the stuffing beat out of them. Win these NC games and finish even .500 in conference and Maine will be in the running for an invite to the NCAA's next March. Then the western teams will view trips to Alfond as worthwhile, as even losses will mean something in the pairwise (and wins will mean even more if the NCAA tweaks the formula again).