Losing to a B1G team is no great embarrassment, even one with a sub .500 record. Upsets happen. Losing to NDSU, Western Michigan, Central Michigan, Northern Illinois (all at home) and ISU multiple years (4 times in Kinnick) often when they were freaking terrible... looks a lot worse than getting upset by a B1G team in the midst of a conference season.
The worst non-con Fry loss I recall is @ Tulsa 1996. If I'm forgeting some, fill in the blanks.
Yes I remember it well, as an aside and I’m not proud to admit this but I’m a pretty open book… I was 26, living with my wife, girlfriend at the time. Drunk off my ass and bawling in my living room and she came out of the bedroom to find out what the hell was wrong with me…
Not gonna go back and double check all of that right now. I may some time but I do know people forget we lost Iowa State three times in a row from 79 to 81 and they were a combined 15 – 16 – 2 over that time.
I also remember losing to a 2-9 Minnesota 13 to 28 that would’ve squared our record at 6-6 back in 92.
Generally I agree with you to a point…But Those teams are way better now than they were back then & North Dakota state is easily every year one of the 40 or 50 best teams in college football. Also Northern Illinois had an incredible run in that timeframe so no I don’t believe you’re being particularly fair.
However I have nothing for you on Central Michigan and Western Michigan those were insulting.
Here’s the deal though and again Hayden started this all so I’m certainly not denigrating him. But I’ve read these posts about how awesome Hayden was for so damn long it is just complete revisionist history…
From 1979 to 1998 (20 seasons) Hayden played 110 teams with losing records. In 8 of those 20 the schedule included 6 teams with losing records. In 3 more he played 7 teams with losing records including the 1991 season in which many of our fans consider to be one of our better seasons of all time.
Conversely in 23 seasons, Kirk has played 115 teams with losing records. 4 seasons he played six teams with losing record, 1 season he played seven and 1 season he played eight.
So there is no way you can tell me Hayden played tougher competition. Furthermore and I’m not really even sure what this means but 17 of the sub 500 teams Kirk has played have been in the last 10 years when 6/6 teams got to go to bowl games. 17 of those 115 sub .500 teams were decent/average mostly power 5 competitors.