Ilhawk, not sure why you added in 94 as the comparative year would be 2014… where we will have Pitt.. and most likely a PAC12 foe by then.
But, anyway, I like the “FACT CHECK” idea, especially to an earlier comment of yours: “I do believe the B10 had more balance from top to bottom then than now.”
Here’s some facts I pulled from my data base on Hawkeye and Big Ten stuff:
Historically, the decade of the 80′s (defined 1981-1990 in my database) had the worst “balance” of any decade going back to the 50′s. By decade:
60′s: three Big Ten teams won less than 37% of their conference games.
70′s: only Indiana and Iowa won less than 37% of their conference games.
80′s: Indiana, Minnesota, Purdue, Wisconsin, and Northwestern all won less than 37% of their conference games.
90′s: only Illinois, Indiana, and Minnesota won less than 37% of conference games.
2000′s: Again, only Illinois, Indiana and Minnesota won less than 37 % of conference games.
Fact: we had more bottom feeders in the decade of the 80′s than any other measured decade.
SO one might argue, maybe the top five teams in the 80′s were just that much stronger (which by itself loses your argument of more parity back then).
The fact is the decade of the 80′s was the only decade where the Big Ten did not produce a national champion; It was the only decade where five teams failed to win more than 45% of their total games played. For example, in the 2000′s only Illinois and Indiana failed to win more than 45% of their games against all opponents… in the 80′s, Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Purdue, and Northwestern all failed to win more than 45% of their total games.
As a conference the 1980′s were also kinda ugly from a final rankings standing: the Big Ten did not have a top ten team in 81,82,or 84… only in 85, 86, and 89 did the conference get more than one team in the final top ten, each of those years getting two.
Comparatively, in the 2000′s, we only had one year, 2001, where we didn’t have a top ten team. We had two teams in the top ten in 05, 08, and 2010…. and got three teams in the top ten in 02,03, 06, and 09.
So, not only was the conference deeper in the 2000′s compared to the 80′s based on parity of wins, the better teams in the 2000′s gained greater national rankings than in the 80′s.
