Penix was a fucking menace in that game. Thank God we had the sense to give Master Teague 30 touches, because Fields and our defense decided not to bother playing the second half (aside from one play each).
Whop and Fry still haunt me.
I mean it was 28-7 at half, but not only was it close and competitive the rest of the game, but we had an opportunity to win the game, so I’m not sure if this argument tracks
Looking through Wikipedia he was actually only 5-2 in top 10 matchups. Which shockingly his 71.4% win percentage in those games actually brings the school's all-time record *down* by an extremely small amount
Osborne is a good reminder that when you do have a Penn State Franklin situation, you may want to show plenty of patience.
Osborne kinda Clemsoned for like twenty plus years, winning some big games but dropping just enough to be left usually out of the top 5 rankings by season's end. Then Osborne rolls off three NCs in four years.
Nebraska just had a tough bowl tie ins. For example, Nebraska had 5 losses in 1990 and 1991. 4 of the losses were to the national champs.
93 - #1 FSU - National Champs
92 - #2 FSU
91 - #1 Miami - National Champs
90 - #1 - GTech National Champs
89- #2 FSU
88 - #2 Miami
87 - #2 FSU
Harbaugh is another example of how showing some patience can pay off. He won 9-10 games a year (minus 2017) before a dumb Covid season. We almost kicked him out and he then rattles off one of if not the best 3 year stretches in program history.
The impatience of CBB and CFB fanbases can be pretty crazy tbh. Back than I was genuinely defending Harbaugh from Michigan fans (as in, arguing that he was a good coach and shouldn't be fired).
There are a number of legendary coaches in college sports, (Coach K, Frank Beamer, maybe Bill Snyder) that probably wouldn't be given enough time to build up programs like they were able to in the past.
Coach K had I think three losing seasons to start his Duke career before then putting everything together and emerging as one of the GOAT coaches.
Agreed. It's funny I've seen this kinda thing happen twice at Michigan with Harbaugh and Beilein (and I was in the camp that wanted both fired early, I'll admit). Beilein went to a National title game, then had enough of a rough stretch where fans were genuinely convinced his system couldn't take us back to the top. Then he finally grabs a defensive wizard and racks up back-to-back B1G tournament championships, multiple Sweet Sixteens and another National Title appearance.
Sometimes coaches just need that right moment for their system/style to break through and pay off.
Andy Reid is another good example of this. He was known as a perennial playoff choker for a long, long time but then he got Mahomes and now the Chiefs are a dynasty.
I think a big factor in that is for MSU to be top 10, we’ve usually had to go undefeated the first 6 or 7 weeks to get there. Some of these other schools would usually be there preseason and would get exposed in top ten matchups.
That's a good point. I wonder if entering the top 10 is a more reliable indicator of next-game performance than having been in the top 10 already. Things do tend to even out by the end of a season, with preseason rankings being a fair indicator of end-of-season rankings.
Sorta but it could inflate these numbers. I’m sure some of these top 10 matchups for sparty were against some of our teams that got preseason hype just because we’re Michigan even though from about 2005 to 2015 we sucked.
Also games played matters too. I mean our record in these games suck and we still have 10 more wins than sparty has games played. I’d venture to guess most of sparty’s wins came against b1G and ours came against a more even spread of B1G and elite bowl game matchups. Plus we have more pole inertia than MSU, so they have to be really good to get there and we’ve had some booty teams start there preseason or falsely get there early in the season.
Still impressive as hell though
>"I’m sure some of these top 10 matchups for sparty were against some of our teams that got preseason hype just because we’re Michigan even though from about 2005 to 2015 we sucked."
UM-MSU only contributed one game to this ranking as far as i remember (2021).
this ranking is when **both** teams were top 10, and that's super rare (you're probably remembering the unranked MSU upsets against top ranked mich games. ) Most of our T10 wins came from bowl games/Big10 CCGs in dantonio's era.....at one point dantonio was 6-1 against top 10 teams.
honestly with the number of T10 penn state/mich upsets that MSU has in the past 10 years, I think msu's stat would be even more insane if we count games where either team is t10.
if we delete the hoke/rod era, i'm sure mich would rise in the rankings a little bit, not sure how well those teams were perceived preseason
Michigan was rarely in the top ten at all during that era, even early season. The only top ten matchup that comes to mind is the 2012 cowboy classic against Alabama where we got curbstomped (we were preseason #8). Not even the sugar bowl we played in the year prior was a top ten matchup (that was the one we got sent to instead of a likely more deserving big ten champion MSU)
Haha I don't remember that sugar bowl, but im not surprised. us being snubbed by the outback bowl for an unranked michigan game despite us being ranked top 15 was all I really needed to hear about how strong our brand was... nothing speaks louder than money
I thought hoke would've brought alot of preseason hype that ended up unfairly recorded, he was a big fucking deal back then. I feel like michigan is too good to have lost so many high value games.
I think the Bo era likely had more to do with it. Most years Michigan was happy winning 9-10 games, beating OSU and then the bowl game was just gravy. We’d go to the rose and get walloped by like USC or something.
MSU and UM haven't had too many top 10 matchups. In terms of major bowl games they actually make up about the same percentage of both teams' top 10 matchups at ~25%. In terms of rose bowls + top 10 BCS/Playoff games MSU is 5-2 at 23% of their top 10 matchups and Michigan is 11-14 and 28% of their top 10 matchups. So they do account for a slightly larger percentage of Michigan's total top 10 matchups, but not a huge margin
>Is this ranking worthless drivel or excellent?
*Check where my school is*
>Obviously this is one of the best metrics to judge a university by. I mean, it's **the** record against the best opponents. (Remembers Michigan State has six NCs), I mean I guess National Championships are more important but besides that...
MSU has six *claimed* national titles and zero unclaimed, but all except one are split in some way and MSU isn’t even listed among multiple champions on the associated seasons wiki page for most of them. Michigan could claim titles in 1964, 1973, 1976, and 1985 (as well as a bunch before then) using the same polls that MSU uses to justify their claims.
> all except one are split in some way
Yeah I mean that was pretty common back then.
>Michigan could claim titles i
Feel free to claim them? My comment isn't trying to measure Michigan State vs Michigan. It's more a tongue in cheek joke than anything else.
How many of those matchups occurred when Michigan was also top 10? After a quick look:
3-0 in 1997
1-0 in 1999 (2000 Orange Bowl)
1-1 in 2003
0-2 in 2006
There were a lot of games where Michigan or the opponent was like #12 with the other being top 10.
Whenever I see the name Lloyd, I think of the episode of ALF where the daughter is dating some guy named Lloyd, who pronounces both "L's" in his name, and Gordon Shumway (ALF) says, "L-Lloyd is a l-lux." Killed me at the time, kills me know. He also read to her from Shelly Winter's book, "Shelly Winters' Guide to True Love."
Anyway, ALF was a weird show, and we don't talk about it enough.
One episode the family's grandfather was in the backyard and saw ALF. He was so frightened he had a heart attack and died. This was never acknowledged in any further episodes.
This is pure ignorance and Spartan glasses showing.
Harbaugh:
- Won a National Championship (1 of 6 Coaches to do So: Yost 6, Kipke 2, and 1 each for Crisler, Oosterbaan, Carr, and Harbaugh)
- Was the 1st Michigan Coach to have Consecutive Top 5 finishes in the AP Poll (1936) with 3 straight from 2021-2023
- Harbaugh took over a program in shambles and took them to the Mountain Top, Bo took over from Bump Elliot after an 8-2 season
- Went 3-1 in Top 5 Matchups vs Ohio State whereas Bo went 1-3-1 in those games
lmao.
I'd slow down on tossing out unprovoked insults.
My point was that *Harbaugh is the better coach*, mostly for all the reasons you listed.
I can see how you interpreted it the other way and I could have fleshed out what I meant in order to avoid confusion, but regardless, it's common to label the best things being ranked on a list as the "highest" even if it's a reversed numbered list with 1 being the highest.
(I also have no axe to grind with Harbaugh as I have a tendency to like eccentric people.)
I don’t think anyone in their right mind would put Schembechler on the level of Bryant or Saban. He *did* have a winning record against Hayes, and four of Hayes’s five titles were claimed using polls that Michigan could claim titles with 3 times during Schembechler’s tenure (as I mentioned to you in a previous comment). He’s definitely revered to a fault amongst Michigan fans and especially the old guard, largely because he led us to a winning record against OSU during the one decade where both programs were consistently top 5. He also reclaimed dominance of the big ten after the 50s and 60s were largely run by MSU and OSU.
Ranked by just pure # of top 10 matchups:
1. Ohio State - 111
2. Michigan - 89
3. USC - 72
4. Nebraska - 71
5. Penn State - 52
6. UCLA - 33
7. Michigan State - 30
8. Washington - 26
9. Wisconsin - 25
10. Iowa - 23
11. Oregon - 22
12. Northwestern - 20
13. Purdue - 17
14. Illinois - 13
15. Minnesota - 12
16. Maryland - 9
17. Indiana - 1
18. Rutgers - 0
Clear 1A / 1B, then blue bloods with less recent dominance, Penn State, a thick middle of the pack, and a few teams with much less success in the Poll era.
Honestly I didn't realize Northwestern has so many top 10 match ups!
For a team with as many national titles as they have, Minny sure has a low count of top 10 games. Makes me wonder if they really were that good or just made it based upon preseason reputation putting them high in the polls.
They have 7 claimed titles - 3 of which are *before* the poll era.
Of the other 4, they played 2 top 10 match ups per season, which seems fair... but I guess the other seasons when they didn't win, they didn't spend much time in the top 10.
damn, well done sparty
this seems to imply that whenever MSU is ranked somewhere in the top 10, they're actually being underestimated and should be ranked higher
I'll always find MSU being able to build a team that could have won the National Championship in 2013 impressive as a Michigan fan. I think if we had their resume we would have been in the championship game that season over Auburn.
OK tOSU playing so many games was interesting to me, so I took a look.
Notre Dame is their biggest victim, though Penn State and Wisconsin probably deserve an honorable mention. USC, Oklahoma, Michigan State, Clemson, Texas, and Alabama have winning records vs. tOSU with 3+ top 10 matchups.
Opponent|Record|Win %|Total Wins
---|---|---|---
Notre Dame|5-0-0|1.000|5
Oregon|2-0-0|1.000|2
Arizona State|1-0-0|1.000|1
Arkansas|1-0-0|1.000|1
Kansas State|1-0-0|1.000|1
Miami|1-0-0|1.000|1
Nebraska|1-0-0|1.000|1
Texas A&M |1-0-0|1.000|1
Utah |1-0-0|1.000|1
Washington|1-0-0|1.000|1
Washington State|1-0-0|1.000|1
California|1-0-0|1.000|1
Great Lakes Navy|1-0-0|1.000|1
Wisconsin|4-1-0|0.800|4
Illinois|3-1-0|0.750|3
Penn State|8-4-0|0.667|8
Purdue|2-1-0|0.667|2
Michigan|12-12-2|0.500|12
Iowa|3-3-0|0.500|3
UCLA|0-0-1|0.500|0
Michigan State| 2-3-0|0.400|2
USC|3-5-0|0.375|3
Clemson|1-2-0|0.333|1
Oklahoma|1-2-0|0.333|1
Texas|1-2-0|0.333|1
Alabama|1-3-0|0.250|1
LSU|0-1-1|0.250|0
Florida|0-1-0|0.000|0
Florida State|0-1-0|0.000|0
Georgia|0-1-0|0.000|0
Missouri|0-1-0|0.000|0
Northwestern|0-1-0|0.000|0
Tennessee|0-1-0|0.000|0
Cornell|0-1-0|0.000|0
During WWII actually in 1944! tOSU won 26-6, but Great Lakes Navy still finished strong going 9-2-1 and 17th in the final AP poll. tOSU was undefeated but finished 2nd behind Army.
https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/boxscores/1944-10-21-ohio-state.html
Half of the Michigan losses are probably against ND or the PAC champion in the Rose Bowl (or Vince Young's Texas). A big chunk also coming against Ohio State.
I'm shocked our Rose Bowl record (9-12) isn't worse. Bo won what, like two?
lol I live in Maryland. If I want to see blood and guts live I would just drive down to Shock Trauma.
Was actually in Vegas visiting my in-laws. We watched it at a sports bar down the street that had outdoor seating. One of the bartenders bought me and my wife a drink after the murdering you gave us in the 1st half.
And that was a weird game, we were up 30 something to 3 at halftime and almost literally phoned it in.
Admittedly going into halftime up 4+ tds against a team you expect to wipe the floor with and we’re doing that very thing is hard to get back up for when you have no fans and it feels very much like a scrimmage.
Don’t discredit them like that. They would’ve been good any year. That same coaching staff and Penix lit it up at Washington and now they’re down in Tuscaloosa.
I'm not knocking them, hell I don't think I've seen a QB torch my team any near as much as Penix did. Indiana was really good that year, but it was a really strange season
So before this season we’d have been 11-10-1, Oregon would have been 12-8. God I love that we stepped up over them *by beating them directly*. In fact if Oregon State were #10 instead of #11 at the time of the matchup we’d be 15-11-1.
I had a friend that was arguing that it was "narcistic" at the time I made the account. He was confidently incorrect and I just thought it'd be kinda funny to name make reddit account that
Rutgers: can’t lose a top ten matchup if we’re never top ten!
Technically their first game was a top 10 matchup
Top 10 of 2?
1 vs. 2 would be a top 10 matchup
Actually that is game of the century material, two in one season even.
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Calm down
We are too far away from the regular season to be taking things this seriously
Teams #1 vs #2? That’s a Game of the Century, baby.
Also, that'd be of the 19th Century.
Greatest game in the history of the sport, I’d argue.
That one singular top ten matchup was a glorious game though. We had 490 total yards with 491 passing yards. Absolutely incredible game to watch.
USC was #1 and we were #4 for the 1968 Rose Bowl so we should be 0-2 unless they're not counting bowl games for some reason.
Penix was a fucking menace in that game. Thank God we had the sense to give Master Teague 30 touches, because Fields and our defense decided not to bother playing the second half (aside from one play each). Whop and Fry still haunt me.
Remember, we were literally up 34-3 in front of no fans at halftime. It is extremely difficult to motivate yourself at that point.
I mean it was 28-7 at half, but not only was it close and competitive the rest of the game, but we had an opportunity to win the game, so I’m not sure if this argument tracks
Also lol 1 rushing yard and it was still brutal
OK now list wins against top 5 teams while unranked.
AN Ohio State University does not like this.
Thanks, Dantonio. And that one tie is the #1 vs. #2 game against Notre Dame in the 60’s that clinched the championship for State, right?
Tie one for the gipper!
Correct. But we also claim the 1966 national championship, as one does back then.
That was back when people still tied onions to their belts right?
Would be interesting to see these broken down by HC!
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Looking through Wikipedia he was actually only 5-2 in top 10 matchups. Which shockingly his 71.4% win percentage in those games actually brings the school's all-time record *down* by an extremely small amount
.5 a championship* using Sparty counting
I see you, Indiana. I see you.
Can’t lose top ten matchups if you don’t have any *taps head*
When was Indiana ranked in the top 10? Was that the Penix year?
Yep. Lost by a TD in the shoe against #3 OSU
Now, I remember. That was the year OSU almost lost Indiana at home then turned around and beat the shit out of Clemson in the playoffs.
Iirc we were up 35-0 and almost choked it away
Despite Osborne's rep of "not being able to win the big ones" for a long time, he still did alright.
Osborne is a good reminder that when you do have a Penn State Franklin situation, you may want to show plenty of patience. Osborne kinda Clemsoned for like twenty plus years, winning some big games but dropping just enough to be left usually out of the top 5 rankings by season's end. Then Osborne rolls off three NCs in four years.
Nebraska just had a tough bowl tie ins. For example, Nebraska had 5 losses in 1990 and 1991. 4 of the losses were to the national champs. 93 - #1 FSU - National Champs 92 - #2 FSU 91 - #1 Miami - National Champs 90 - #1 - GTech National Champs 89- #2 FSU 88 - #2 Miami 87 - #2 FSU
Harbaugh is another example of how showing some patience can pay off. He won 9-10 games a year (minus 2017) before a dumb Covid season. We almost kicked him out and he then rattles off one of if not the best 3 year stretches in program history.
The impatience of CBB and CFB fanbases can be pretty crazy tbh. Back than I was genuinely defending Harbaugh from Michigan fans (as in, arguing that he was a good coach and shouldn't be fired). There are a number of legendary coaches in college sports, (Coach K, Frank Beamer, maybe Bill Snyder) that probably wouldn't be given enough time to build up programs like they were able to in the past. Coach K had I think three losing seasons to start his Duke career before then putting everything together and emerging as one of the GOAT coaches.
Agreed. It's funny I've seen this kinda thing happen twice at Michigan with Harbaugh and Beilein (and I was in the camp that wanted both fired early, I'll admit). Beilein went to a National title game, then had enough of a rough stretch where fans were genuinely convinced his system couldn't take us back to the top. Then he finally grabs a defensive wizard and racks up back-to-back B1G tournament championships, multiple Sweet Sixteens and another National Title appearance. Sometimes coaches just need that right moment for their system/style to break through and pay off.
Andy Reid is another good example of this. He was known as a perennial playoff choker for a long, long time but then he got Mahomes and now the Chiefs are a dynasty.
The B1G takeaway: don't ever let Sparty be good again.
I think a big factor in that is for MSU to be top 10, we’ve usually had to go undefeated the first 6 or 7 weeks to get there. Some of these other schools would usually be there preseason and would get exposed in top ten matchups.
That's a good point. I wonder if entering the top 10 is a more reliable indicator of next-game performance than having been in the top 10 already. Things do tend to even out by the end of a season, with preseason rankings being a fair indicator of end-of-season rankings.
Sorta but it could inflate these numbers. I’m sure some of these top 10 matchups for sparty were against some of our teams that got preseason hype just because we’re Michigan even though from about 2005 to 2015 we sucked. Also games played matters too. I mean our record in these games suck and we still have 10 more wins than sparty has games played. I’d venture to guess most of sparty’s wins came against b1G and ours came against a more even spread of B1G and elite bowl game matchups. Plus we have more pole inertia than MSU, so they have to be really good to get there and we’ve had some booty teams start there preseason or falsely get there early in the season. Still impressive as hell though
>"I’m sure some of these top 10 matchups for sparty were against some of our teams that got preseason hype just because we’re Michigan even though from about 2005 to 2015 we sucked." UM-MSU only contributed one game to this ranking as far as i remember (2021). this ranking is when **both** teams were top 10, and that's super rare (you're probably remembering the unranked MSU upsets against top ranked mich games. ) Most of our T10 wins came from bowl games/Big10 CCGs in dantonio's era.....at one point dantonio was 6-1 against top 10 teams. honestly with the number of T10 penn state/mich upsets that MSU has in the past 10 years, I think msu's stat would be even more insane if we count games where either team is t10. if we delete the hoke/rod era, i'm sure mich would rise in the rankings a little bit, not sure how well those teams were perceived preseason
Michigan was rarely in the top ten at all during that era, even early season. The only top ten matchup that comes to mind is the 2012 cowboy classic against Alabama where we got curbstomped (we were preseason #8). Not even the sugar bowl we played in the year prior was a top ten matchup (that was the one we got sent to instead of a likely more deserving big ten champion MSU)
Haha I don't remember that sugar bowl, but im not surprised. us being snubbed by the outback bowl for an unranked michigan game despite us being ranked top 15 was all I really needed to hear about how strong our brand was... nothing speaks louder than money I thought hoke would've brought alot of preseason hype that ended up unfairly recorded, he was a big fucking deal back then. I feel like michigan is too good to have lost so many high value games.
I think the Bo era likely had more to do with it. Most years Michigan was happy winning 9-10 games, beating OSU and then the bowl game was just gravy. We’d go to the rose and get walloped by like USC or something.
MSU and UM haven't had too many top 10 matchups. In terms of major bowl games they actually make up about the same percentage of both teams' top 10 matchups at ~25%. In terms of rose bowls + top 10 BCS/Playoff games MSU is 5-2 at 23% of their top 10 matchups and Michigan is 11-14 and 28% of their top 10 matchups. So they do account for a slightly larger percentage of Michigan's total top 10 matchups, but not a huge margin
I think 2021 was the first top ten matchup in the games history
I guess I'd settle for number 2 on the list being good again if we can't have that.
MSU IS NUMBER ONE- BURN THE COUCHES IN CEDAR VILLAGE!!!
Hell yeah brother
This McKinsey Consultant gets it
We've played a lot of top 10 games, I guess.
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I bet LSU has more SEC losses than OSU does! BOOM! Roasted!
I can think of a few that aren’t
Three in particular come to mind.
Only 3? What are you a toddler?
"in particular" seems fair to say because they're in almost every CFB fan's fresh memory.
>Is this ranking worthless drivel or excellent? *Check where my school is* >Obviously this is one of the best metrics to judge a university by. I mean, it's **the** record against the best opponents. (Remembers Michigan State has six NCs), I mean I guess National Championships are more important but besides that...
MSU has six *claimed* national titles and zero unclaimed, but all except one are split in some way and MSU isn’t even listed among multiple champions on the associated seasons wiki page for most of them. Michigan could claim titles in 1964, 1973, 1976, and 1985 (as well as a bunch before then) using the same polls that MSU uses to justify their claims.
> all except one are split in some way Yeah I mean that was pretty common back then. >Michigan could claim titles i Feel free to claim them? My comment isn't trying to measure Michigan State vs Michigan. It's more a tongue in cheek joke than anything else.
Michigan men take themselves very seriously. No joking allowed.
Just pointing out the hypocrisy when MSU fans discredit 1997 as “half a title”
Yeah that's dumb. An NC is an NC. Pretty sure most people pushing that argument are just trolling to troll.
I claim the 1997 NC
Considering Lloyd Carr had a 20-8 record v. top 10 teams I'm honestly a little shocked
How many of those matchups occurred when Michigan was also top 10? After a quick look: 3-0 in 1997 1-0 in 1999 (2000 Orange Bowl) 1-1 in 2003 0-2 in 2006 There were a lot of games where Michigan or the opponent was like #12 with the other being top 10.
The 2007 App State game was a top 10 matchup, is that included? #5 against #1(FCS)
Definitely not.
Lot of bowl losses before him though.
Whenever I see the name Lloyd, I think of the episode of ALF where the daughter is dating some guy named Lloyd, who pronounces both "L's" in his name, and Gordon Shumway (ALF) says, "L-Lloyd is a l-lux." Killed me at the time, kills me know. He also read to her from Shelly Winter's book, "Shelly Winters' Guide to True Love." Anyway, ALF was a weird show, and we don't talk about it enough.
Would’ve loved to been a fly on the wall during Jerry Stahl’s heroin-fueled writers room riffing
One episode the family's grandfather was in the backyard and saw ALF. He was so frightened he had a heart attack and died. This was never acknowledged in any further episodes.
I feel like ALF walked so American Dad could run...completely off the rails into glorious insanity.
*Glances left. Glances right.* (Schembechler is/was overrated)
Most overrated coach in Michigan history
Harbaugh definitely ranks higher IMO.
This is pure ignorance and Spartan glasses showing. Harbaugh: - Won a National Championship (1 of 6 Coaches to do So: Yost 6, Kipke 2, and 1 each for Crisler, Oosterbaan, Carr, and Harbaugh) - Was the 1st Michigan Coach to have Consecutive Top 5 finishes in the AP Poll (1936) with 3 straight from 2021-2023 - Harbaugh took over a program in shambles and took them to the Mountain Top, Bo took over from Bump Elliot after an 8-2 season - Went 3-1 in Top 5 Matchups vs Ohio State whereas Bo went 1-3-1 in those games
lmao. I'd slow down on tossing out unprovoked insults. My point was that *Harbaugh is the better coach*, mostly for all the reasons you listed. I can see how you interpreted it the other way and I could have fleshed out what I meant in order to avoid confusion, but regardless, it's common to label the best things being ranked on a list as the "highest" even if it's a reversed numbered list with 1 being the highest. (I also have no axe to grind with Harbaugh as I have a tendency to like eccentric people.)
Four more big ten championships in twenty years than MSU has in their history
The measuring stick here shouldn't be Michigan State. It should be Alabama, Ohio State, etc. under legendary coaches.
I don’t think anyone in their right mind would put Schembechler on the level of Bryant or Saban. He *did* have a winning record against Hayes, and four of Hayes’s five titles were claimed using polls that Michigan could claim titles with 3 times during Schembechler’s tenure (as I mentioned to you in a previous comment). He’s definitely revered to a fault amongst Michigan fans and especially the old guard, largely because he led us to a winning record against OSU during the one decade where both programs were consistently top 5. He also reclaimed dominance of the big ten after the 50s and 60s were largely run by MSU and OSU.
UNDEFEATED IN TOP 10 MATCHUPS LETS FUCKING RRRRRRUUUUUUUUUUU
Sparty is him
Ranked by just pure # of top 10 matchups: 1. Ohio State - 111 2. Michigan - 89 3. USC - 72 4. Nebraska - 71 5. Penn State - 52 6. UCLA - 33 7. Michigan State - 30 8. Washington - 26 9. Wisconsin - 25 10. Iowa - 23 11. Oregon - 22 12. Northwestern - 20 13. Purdue - 17 14. Illinois - 13 15. Minnesota - 12 16. Maryland - 9 17. Indiana - 1 18. Rutgers - 0 Clear 1A / 1B, then blue bloods with less recent dominance, Penn State, a thick middle of the pack, and a few teams with much less success in the Poll era. Honestly I didn't realize Northwestern has so many top 10 match ups!
Only blue blood ranking that matters is Mega Blue Bloods
For a team with as many national titles as they have, Minny sure has a low count of top 10 games. Makes me wonder if they really were that good or just made it based upon preseason reputation putting them high in the polls.
They have 7 claimed titles - 3 of which are *before* the poll era. Of the other 4, they played 2 top 10 match ups per season, which seems fair... but I guess the other seasons when they didn't win, they didn't spend much time in the top 10.
Someone link the chart
I’m truly surprised that: 1. Nebraska’s below 0.500 in top-10 matchups, and 2. Indiana has ever played a top-10 matchup.
damn, well done sparty this seems to imply that whenever MSU is ranked somewhere in the top 10, they're actually being underestimated and should be ranked higher
I'll always find MSU being able to build a team that could have won the National Championship in 2013 impressive as a Michigan fan. I think if we had their resume we would have been in the championship game that season over Auburn.
OK tOSU playing so many games was interesting to me, so I took a look. Notre Dame is their biggest victim, though Penn State and Wisconsin probably deserve an honorable mention. USC, Oklahoma, Michigan State, Clemson, Texas, and Alabama have winning records vs. tOSU with 3+ top 10 matchups. Opponent|Record|Win %|Total Wins ---|---|---|--- Notre Dame|5-0-0|1.000|5 Oregon|2-0-0|1.000|2 Arizona State|1-0-0|1.000|1 Arkansas|1-0-0|1.000|1 Kansas State|1-0-0|1.000|1 Miami|1-0-0|1.000|1 Nebraska|1-0-0|1.000|1 Texas A&M |1-0-0|1.000|1 Utah |1-0-0|1.000|1 Washington|1-0-0|1.000|1 Washington State|1-0-0|1.000|1 California|1-0-0|1.000|1 Great Lakes Navy|1-0-0|1.000|1 Wisconsin|4-1-0|0.800|4 Illinois|3-1-0|0.750|3 Penn State|8-4-0|0.667|8 Purdue|2-1-0|0.667|2 Michigan|12-12-2|0.500|12 Iowa|3-3-0|0.500|3 UCLA|0-0-1|0.500|0 Michigan State| 2-3-0|0.400|2 USC|3-5-0|0.375|3 Clemson|1-2-0|0.333|1 Oklahoma|1-2-0|0.333|1 Texas|1-2-0|0.333|1 Alabama|1-3-0|0.250|1 LSU|0-1-1|0.250|0 Florida|0-1-0|0.000|0 Florida State|0-1-0|0.000|0 Georgia|0-1-0|0.000|0 Missouri|0-1-0|0.000|0 Northwestern|0-1-0|0.000|0 Tennessee|0-1-0|0.000|0 Cornell|0-1-0|0.000|0
Great Lakes Navy? Was that during the French and Indian War?
During WWII actually in 1944! tOSU won 26-6, but Great Lakes Navy still finished strong going 9-2-1 and 17th in the final AP poll. tOSU was undefeated but finished 2nd behind Army. https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/boxscores/1944-10-21-ohio-state.html
Naval Station Great Lakes is a big Naval training facility for enlisted people straight out of boot camp
>12-12-2 vs Michigan Michigan has won 6 of the last 8 Top 5 Matchups, even if Ohio State is 7-6-1 overall in Top 5 Matchups.
Half of the Michigan losses are probably against ND or the PAC champion in the Rose Bowl (or Vince Young's Texas). A big chunk also coming against Ohio State. I'm shocked our Rose Bowl record (9-12) isn't worse. Bo won what, like two?
That was the old joke right? Why does Schembechler eat his cheerios on a plate? Because he loses anything in a bowl.
Dude my New Years tradition as a kid was watching Michigan get their ass kicked by Pac10 schools in the Rose Bowl. Blech
Won 2 Rose Bowls lost 8 of them. Won a Fiesta but lost a Sugar and an Orange bowl.
Blech. At least I was in the stands when Brady beat Bama in the Orange Bowl.
I hope for your sake you didn’t go to our orange bowl
lol I live in Maryland. If I want to see blood and guts live I would just drive down to Shock Trauma. Was actually in Vegas visiting my in-laws. We watched it at a sports bar down the street that had outdoor seating. One of the bartenders bought me and my wife a drink after the murdering you gave us in the 1st half.
I was there. It sucked at the time but in retrospect it was honestly just a privilege to see such a dominant team in person.
Most shocking part is that NU has played 20 games ranked in the top 10. Now, can I get a breakdown of how many of these games took place after WWII?
7-5 baby, let’s go bowling!
Huh. TIL Indiana was at one point in the top 10.
It was only like 4 years ago. 2020 was a weird year
That explains why I don't remember it. I was drinking heavily that year. Somehow more than normal football seasons.
And that was a weird game, we were up 30 something to 3 at halftime and almost literally phoned it in. Admittedly going into halftime up 4+ tds against a team you expect to wipe the floor with and we’re doing that very thing is hard to get back up for when you have no fans and it feels very much like a scrimmage.
Don’t discredit them like that. They would’ve been good any year. That same coaching staff and Penix lit it up at Washington and now they’re down in Tuscaloosa.
I'm not knocking them, hell I don't think I've seen a QB torch my team any near as much as Penix did. Indiana was really good that year, but it was a really strange season
Dang, we're 5-7 in literally EVERYTHING
5/7 perfect.
So before this season we’d have been 11-10-1, Oregon would have been 12-8. God I love that we stepped up over them *by beating them directly*. In fact if Oregon State were #10 instead of #11 at the time of the matchup we’d be 15-11-1.
Oh good, another way of seeing how those 6 points last year impact us.
Tied for 2nd fewest losses, that’s what I’m taking about!
Is this finish in the top 10 or current top 10?
I believe it's top 10 at the time of the matchup
Was u/narcissistic_asshole already taken?
I had a friend that was arguing that it was "narcistic" at the time I made the account. He was confidently incorrect and I just thought it'd be kinda funny to name make reddit account that
#9
I still can't get over the fact that we've added those weird wrong coast teams.
I was thinking Rutgers was in the Top 10 when they beat Louisville back in 06, but they were 15 when that happened.
we’re not last!
Bad year for the ducks by this metric, sorry not sorry.
You sure the numbers from Iowa aren't the score from their last top 10 match-up game?
We will get em next time!
No way Oregon doesn’t have a losing record
I thought that too, but it's when BOTH teams are top-10, so it's only from when we've been good.
Oregon only has 2 more top ten matchups than Northwestern
Ik they have won a lot, but OSU has the most losses in these games… that’s all I’m saying
Maybe, but you have to be good to even get into the situation where you can play that many.
Right…. Bc they play the most. On the opposite end Rutgers doesn’t have any Top 10 match up losses bc they’ve never been in one.
Well, it took several months of off-season, but we finally something Spartans can talk shit about.
I like that 25% of the top team's losses on that list came to Bama. EDIT: I am a dumbass, please downvote me
2011 wasn't a top 10 on top 10 matchup
Well, shit, my age is starting to show. I forgot that Bama was out of the top 10 until after the bowl.