Guy Chamberlin
Heisman Trophy Winner
Hardy, I could not agree more. Given our significant resources, we should be able to scratch together 6 wins in a season. Like the players, I believe our fans are becoming conditioned to losing. So much so that even modest accomplishments such as bowl eligibility are appearing herculean. 2 wins against sub-par non-conference opponents paired with annual wins against the likes of Purdue, Northwestern, Illinois and Minnesota and we are there. For $5 million annually in salary, we should come to expect this.
We are actually looking up at Purdue, Minnesota, and Northwestern at the moment, and have straight up worse records than Maryland and Rutgers. If wins are the measure, we only lead Illinois, which outplayed us in every phase of the game, and Indiana, which enjoyed a memorable nationally-relevant season just last year.
Think the Big 10 is super tough this year? I'm seeing a lot of paper tigers ranked in the Top 10 who won't be there at season's end. The likelihood is that Purdue and Iowa are both pretty good teams, not powerhouses, and the rest of the pretty good Big 10 is going to start knocking each other out.