Seasons with multiple wins over 10-win teams

Submitted by Human Torpedo on

I was looking over the 2015 season again and found that both Northwestern and Florida won 10 games as well last year. I decided to check back in recent memory to see how many times we've done that. I chose a slightly arbitrary starting point of 1992 (berth of the first official national championship that year, shortly after Bo retired, around the time the 85 scholarship limit started, Penn State joins the Big Ten, etc). 

First off, we've gotten a total of 24 of those "signature wins" over quality opponents since 1992. That's roughly 1 per year (a little less). Moreover, most of those wins were when less games were usually played in a season. 16 of those 22 wins were before 2006, when the NCAA expanded the regular season to 12 games. 

Here are seasons in that timeframe where we had TWO OR MORE victories over opponents with at least 10 wins...

1993 @ Penn State, vs Ohio State

1996 @ Colorado, @ Ohio State

1997 vs Ohio State, vs Washington State

1999 @ Wisconsin, @ Penn State, vs Bama

2003 @ Minnesota, vs Ohio State

2006 vs Central Mich*, @ Notre Dame, vs Wisconsin (yes, I know Central is a MAC team)

2015 vs Northwestern, vs Florida

Additionally I looked up the seasons where we won against one team with at least 11 wins in the same year and they are...

1996 @ Ohio State

1998 vs Wisconsin 

2003 vs Ohio State

2005 vs Penn State

2006 vs Wisconsin (12 wins)

2011 vs Va Tech

To summarize, I think that while recent struggles from at least 2007-14 are well-documented, in the 85 scholarship limit era of parity we haven't been as horrible as people say against top-level competition 

WolvinLA2

July 10th, 2016 at 6:24 PM ^

What extra games are you referring to?  The bowls?  They still had bowls in 1992, so that isn't extra at all.  And yeah, Florida played in a conference championship game, but if that's one fo your 10 wins, that's well earned and more difficult than your typical win.

ijohnb

July 11th, 2016 at 9:05 AM ^

so.  I believe that is, in part, why the two time defending College Football Subdivision champion with an offense specifically suited to conquer and destroy our defensive secondary was added to the schedule in 2007.

WolvinLA2

July 10th, 2016 at 6:22 PM ^

How is there a deeper pool of tomato cans?  Were there only 6 MAC teams in 1992 or something?  

And yeah, during part of that span, teams had 11 games scheduled in the regular season and now they have 12, but 12 has been the norm for most of the period discussed here.  I don't think your criticisms are valid.

lilpenny1316

July 10th, 2016 at 6:44 PM ^

Winning 10 games now or 9 games back in the day of 11 game regular seasons is still pretty impressive.  But that extra non-conference game is usually against a MAC or Sun Belt team unless you're still conference allows you to schedule a game against an FCS team.  And unless you're Illinois or Indiana, that's usually a gimmie game.

Richard75

July 10th, 2016 at 10:37 PM ^

It's not so much that the tomato-can pool is much deeper. It's just that teams are far more willing to schedule tomato cans. That plus the 12th game makes it easier to pile up wins.

Just look at 1980s nonconference schedules. In '86, we played Notre Dame *and* Florida State. In '87, MSU played Notre Dame, FSU and USC(!). Nowadays you're lucky if a school will play that many top-notch opponents in 3 years, despite the extra game. It was a completely different world back then.




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WolverineHistorian

July 11th, 2016 at 1:17 AM ^

It wasn't a completely different world for some teams.

In the 80's, the Independent teams used carefully crafted crappy scheduling to help them win national championships, or at least reach the national title game. In particular, the Miami Hurricanes. Miami had about two big games a year sandwiched between 8 cupcakes. Their 1983 championship team didn't play (or beat) a ranked team until the championship game. Their 87 championship team played one big game all year, their rivalry game against FSU.

Penn State made it to the title game and won in 86 on a schedule that included one ranked team; Alabama who went 10-3.

BYU won it all in 84, despite the fact we nearly beat them in the Holiday Bowl with our backup QB, after our season had gone to crap once we lost Harbaugh.

The common thing all these teams had were crap schedules where they had to get up about twice a year. And those two tough opponents were spread about 6-7 weeks apart. It wasn't like us who had to play Notre Dame on the road, come home and face #1 Miami the following week and then a difficult conference schedule.

Bo specifically addressed this issue in his book the year before his retirement. He said Big Ten teams will have to tone down these tough non-conference schedules if they want to stay in the national title hunt because the championship teams are padding their schedules with so/so competition. A few years later, when Penn State joined the Big Ten, he said Michigan needs to stop playing Notre Dame because that's too many difficult games in a season. Keep in mind, Notre Dame and Penn State were much better programs in the early 90s than they are now.

F5

July 10th, 2016 at 10:20 PM ^

You mentioned that we had a pretty good track record verse strong opponents and I would agree. That is just the favorable part though. How many seasons did we have 2 or more losses verse 10 win teams? Just being fair here.

HonoluluBlue

July 10th, 2016 at 10:53 PM ^

there is a blaring gap of all seasons from 2007-2014 with the exception of one win against Virginia tech right? so I would say all criticisms are warranted

uminks

July 10th, 2016 at 11:32 PM ^

speed bump is over. Onward to 10 or more wins per season with Harbaugh for the next 25 seasons or until Harbuagh retires or tries the NFL again? But I'm sure Harbaugh will win at least 2 or more national championships in his years as our coach.

mickblue

July 11th, 2016 at 7:21 AM ^

For 3 wins over 10 win teams. MSU, Iowa, and OSU on the road. We need to get 2 of these to have the kind of season we all want. MSU is my personal prime target. Especially after last year. I'm hoping for the sweet sound of silence when I walk out of Spartan Stadium this year.

danimal1968

July 11th, 2016 at 12:25 PM ^

The regular season was 12 games in 2002 and 2003.  It was a 2 year experiment at the time, then they went back to 11 games for 2004 and 2005, and then the 12 game regular season was made permanent in 2006.