The glaring caveat to that, Lando, is that losses tend to drop teams from the rankings. So when we beat a ranked team, we're contributing to them dropping out of the rankings. It's a tiny catch-22, but a catch-22 nonetheless.
You're right. But in my opinion, neither number is impressive so it doesn't much matter how you want to look at it...6-11 or 3-14 against ranked opponents. In my opinion, both are below what Nebraska standards should be.
So what are "Nebraska standards"? I'm sure everyone has a different idea but I see a lot of people who want to compare TO at this point in his career to Bo...TO almost getting run out of town and aren't we glad he didn't and we should look at Bo the same way, etc. Let's take a look at these same stats for Osborne's first 4.5 years and see how they stack up. And don't give me that Bo's cupboard was bare and Tom's wasn't. Bo inherited plenty of talent. Looking at only games against ranked opponents at the time of the game...
1973
UCLA - W - 10
NC St - W - 14
Missouri - L - 12
Kansas - W - 18
Colorado - W - 17
Oklahoma - L - 3
Texas - W - 8
1974
Kansas - W - 13
Oklahoma - L - 1
Florida - W - 18
1975
Missouri - W - 12
Oklahoma - L - 7
Arizona St - L 7
1976
Missouri - L - 17
Oklahoma St - W - 13
Oklahoma - L - 8
Texas Tech - W - 9
1977
Alabama - W - 4
So, we see that Bo is 6-11 against ranked opponents. Osborne was 11-7 against ranked opponents through the same point in his career.