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I think there needs to be a review of the outcome of the Michigan - Notre Dame last Saturday. Notre Dame lost, and since it had a much better team than Michigan there must have been an external force affecting the game, such as officiating a la Oregon - Oklahoma.

We all know that even on its best day there is no way a Big-10 team can beat Notre Dame.

hope you enjoyed it

They got spanked alright. Michigan looked like a team on a mission and ND looked overrated as heck!

They are both over-rated

Last year, they had a great record. Let's see how great...

Record = 9-3 (9-2 in regular season)

at Pittsburgh W 42-21
at Michigan W 17-10
Michigan St L 44-41 OT
at Washington W 36-17
at Purdue W 49-28
USC L 34-31
BYU W 49-23
Tennessee W 41-21
Navy W 42-21
Syracuse W 34-10
at Stanford W 38-31
-----------------------
Ohio State L 34-20

How is ND overranked? Simple: when they beat several of the above teams, when they beat them (above), several of their opponents were highly overranked, probably due to traditional expectations (including once ranked Tennessee).

Examples: When ND played...
...Michigan was #3, but finished unranked with 5 losses.
...Pittsburg was #23, but finished 5-6 and unranked.
...Purdue was #22, but finished 5-6 and unranked.

Now, let’s break that down.
- In regular season, they went 9-2.
- The two LOSSES were to USC and Mich State (a 5-6 team)
- The 9 WINS were against TWO teams with winning record (Michigan that lost 5 games that year, and Navy).
- The combined record of teams of the 9 victories was: 44 wins and 58 losses.
- The overall combined opponents’ record is 59-65.

Now, let's look at that LIST again...

...Look at the opponents' records.
* = loss
Pitt (5-6)
Mich (7-5) <--won by 7 against a team that would have 5 losses
* Mich State (5-6) <--Lost in OT, but ND got credit for the close loss because MSU was 3-0 at the time
Wash (2-9) <--impressive win?
Purdue (5-6) <--another 6 loss team
* USC (11-1) <--this was an impressive loss, no doubt. But this wasn’t the same Nat’l Champ team of the year before
BYU (6-6) <--MWC, 6 losses again
Tenn (5-6) <--bad 6 loss Tenn team that everyone thought would dominate after devastating win in the Cotton bowl against Aggies
Navy (8-4) <-- win over Navy, but Navy had about the weakest schedule in football last year (see below)
Syracuse (1-10) <-- another impressive win
Stanford (5-6) <-- Stanford lost to a 1-AA team this year, one of their wins was NAVY

BOWL GAME
* Ohio State (11-1)




NAVY SCHEDULE
Maryland L 23-20
Stanford L 41-38 <--bottom dweller
at Rice Postponed <--bottom dweller
at Duke W 28-21 <--bottom dweller
Air Force W 27-24
Kent State W 34-31
at Rice W 41-9 <--bottom dweller
at Rutgers L 31-21 <--bottom dweller
Tulane W 49-21 <--bottom dweller
at No. 7 Notre Dame L 42-21
Temple W 38-17 <--bottom dweller
at Army W 42-23 <--bottom dweller
vs Colorado State W 51-30

Record 8-4

...you have way too much time on your hands.

Mustangs35SMU wrote:...you have way too much time on your hands.

What 35 said....

Mustang1991
Drop the sour grapes act. Do you go to the Bob Stoops school of kicking and screaming?

When Notre Dame has a secondary that can catch up to the deep ball, then you can talk national title.

Until then....NOTRE DAME SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS and just got its [deleted] whipped by the POWER OF THE BIG 10!!!!

Good luck this weekend in Lansing against Michigan St., which has won the last 7 meetings.

Big10 sucks in my opinion. They get their Conference vs non-Conference schedule over .500 every year by playing a MAC team at least one game.

And this is different from Big 12 Schools playing C-USA or Sunbelt schools, or SEC teams playing schools from conferences one has never heard of?

I also might add that the Big Ten has a healthy 58% win percentage in the BCS bowls, when the supposed "big boys" are out to play.

of course...no championship game.

There have been at least 2 years where the Big12 had 2 teams that would have been in the BCS games, but the Champ game f'ed them, and only one went (the lesser team won the Champ game).

I am not arguing for the Big12, they suck this year, clearly.

But, ever since Big/Pac10 joined the BCS, there has been a bias to give the 'extra' game to a Pac10 team or a Big10 team...until Mack Brown cried his way in over CAL that one year (then CAL got their [deleted] handed to them by TxTECH). That was the same year Mich lost to Texas.

Save Ohio state, they haven't had a good team in a while. Penn State had a nice run last year, and hit all their teams on down years (including the Big10 schedule).

That was a 7-5 Michigan team last year, mind you. Purdue was ranked and finished 5-6. MichState was 3-0 and beat ND, then finished 5-6...

I mean, your 4th place team had 5 losses last year.

Penn State 7-1 11-1
Ohio State 7-1 10-2
Wisconsin 5-3 10-3
Northwestern 5-3 7-5
Michigan 5-3 7-5
Iowa 5-3 7-5
Minnesota 4-4 7-5
Purdue 3-5 5-6
Michigan State 2-6 5-6
Indiana 1-7 4-7
Illinois 0-8 2-9

Last year was a down year for the Big Ten, no doubt. Though to be fair, the winning team in the SEC had 2 losses, and the next three teams 3.

I disagree (obviously) with you that, generally speaking, the Big Ten 'sucks.' It's that kind of arguement I think would be more fun with a 1a playoff.

To be perfectly honest though, I'm not really a "Big Ten" fan like the poster of the same name. By dint of growing up in Michigan I am a UM fan (and by proxy somewhat interested in OSU because I feel the season is more interesting when they are both good). I can count on one hand the number of Iowa, Penn State, etc. games I watched last year eithier UM or OSU were not in.

Also...I would sign a Faustian pack relegating UM to 10 straight years of losing to OSU to see SMU in (and win) a BCS bowl (but I dream).

And our top 3 teams won their bowl games.

Wisconsin over Auburn -- Capital One
Ohio State over Notre Dame -- Fiesta Bowl
Penn State over Florida State -- Orange Bowl

By the way, rip the second division of the Big 10 all you want, let's remind the SEC, ACC and Big 12 kool-aid drinkiers about their slop. Notice how those folks did against the MAC, which is a BETTER CONFERENCE than people give it credit for.

SEC
Ole Miss -- They lost to Kentucky
Kentucky -- They beat Ole Miss
Miss. State -- didn't score in the first two games
Vandy -- same ol same ol
Arkansas -- 20 points against sorry Utah State?

Big 12
Colorado -- great effort losing to Division I-AA Montana State -- AT HOME
Baylor -- Nothing exciting here
Kansas State -- Had to survive 1-AA team in the opener 24-23?
Kansas -- great effort against the MAC -- losing to Toledo
Oklahoma State -- Play absolutely no one in their non-conference

ACC
NC State -- great effort AGAINST THE MAC - losing to Akron at HOME
Virginia -- great effort AGAINST THE MAC -- losing to W. Michigan at HOME
Duke -- Horrible, Horrible Horrible
North Carolina -- Had to survive I-AA Furman

The Big 10 plays the MAC. At lease we beat them.

This thread offends me.