First of all, am I to understand that Syracuse fans are ripping on our schedule????
Please, this can not be? You are kidding me, right?!
Syracuse played a WEAKER schedule than we did. PERIOD.
Looking at CBSSportsline's Top 126 Ranking
Syra - 1-12-39-50-53-55-64-73-74-83-97-UR
Minn - 4-17-35-39-41-51-61-64-69-79-116-UR
Seems UMn played more Top 40, more Top 50, more Top 70 & more Top 80 opponents than Syracuse did. So who played all the creampuffs??
And not only did UMn play more Top 50 teams, but we beat 2 of them. And our worst loss was to #51 Michigan, Syracuse lost to the #64 and the #73 ranked teams. Seems it doesn't matter if they played more creampuffs or not, they might still have lost. How much more of a creampuff can you get than #73 of 126?
If Syracuse needs to do a Cincy and play nothing but teams ranked in triple digits to get to 8 or more wins in the season, then what does that say about their team?
Minnesota played more quality opponents than Syracuse and still won 2 more games, including beating the 2 common opponents we shared, while Syracuse lost to those 2 teams.
And lets compare how each team did vs these scedules.
UMinn lost its 4 games by margins of 29, 16, 13 & 11.
Syracuse lost its 6 gms by margins of 56, 56, 35, 21, 6 & 1.
And that 1 point loss was to the #73 ranked team in the country. Even if you forgive them the loss to #1 FSU and pretend that one didn't happen, we'd still have a far better resume when looking at the losses,
29-16-13-11
vs
56-35-21-6-1
Can't be so forgiving of their loss to GT, seeing as GT is only ranked 50th in the nation.
Looking at another rating system,
Sagarin has their SOS ranked as #48, UMn's is #46.
Comparing them from best to worst shows we played more quality opponents.
Minn - 7-10-29-38-49-54-57-65-84-91-192-UR
Syra - 1-16-33-54-58-59-65-71-81-83-107-UR
And not only did we play more Top 50 teams(5 to their 3), we actually beat one of them. We played more Top 60 and more Top 70 teams than Syracuse did.
After you get beyond 70, does it really matter anymore, really? I mean it almost did for Syracuse as they lost to #65 NW.
So don't let any of you let anyone lie to you and claim that the Gophers were the team who played nothing but creampuffs.
We missed both Purdue and Illinois and both UNLV and SJSU are bowling. Heck, CBSSportsline has SJSU ranked just one spot below Syracuse, lol. If we played nothing but creampuffs, then what is Syracuse???
In the last 50 years, Syracuse University has only produced TWO Natl Champions outside of the sport of Lacrosse.
Their Men's Crew team won a Natl Title in 1978, and their Men's BB team won the Natl Title in 2003 as we are all well aware of.
Meanwhile, outside of the sport of Ice Hockey, in the last 50 years the Univ of Minnesota has won Natl Titles in Men's Wrestling, Men's Golf, Men's Baseball and gotten Women's VB and Womens BB teams to the Final Four. Our Dance Team is a dynasty that's won 8 Natl titles. Our Men's Gymnastics team has finished #2 in the nation.
We've put more players into the NFL than SU has.
We've put more players into the NBA than SU has.
We've put more players into MLB than SU has.
We've put more players into the NHL than SU has.
We've put twice as many players into the Cfb HOF than SU has.
We've put more players into the Naismith HOF than SU has.
We've put more players in the Baseball HOF than SU has.
We've put more players into the Hockey HOF than SU has.
We've had more players win Gold Medals in the Olympics than SU has.
We invented Cheerleading.
And what has Syracuse ever done for us?? We gave them future HOF coaches Biggie Munn and Ossie Solem(Helms HOF).
SU never made the cfb Top 10 or 20 before WWII, so to be nice, comparing our 2 programs since WWII, here is their Top 5 rankings vs ours.
1-4-6-8-10
vs
1-6-8-9-10
not a big difference.
And in head to head action, they've lost 3 straight to us.
