T-Mac is sort of correct here, but somewhat misleading.
If you schedule average teams, you HAVE to beat them to get the benefit. If you schedule as tough as you possibly can (as I try to do) and lose most of the games (as I did this year) your RPI can still be low enough to make the postseason and your SOS won't be hurt too much by the crappy sims in your conference. It's just the mathematics of the RPI. I went 3-7 in non-conf and still had an RPI just over 100. Beating most of the average teams in my conference has me at 81 now. If I can manage to upset an actually good team it's gravy, if not I still have a great shot at the PIT.
If your team isn't very good, you're likely to lose anyway. So, better to lose on the road against good teams than lose to a couple bad (or average) ones and ruin any chance of a good RPI.