2014 & 2016 regular season comparison

[DarrenTheGreek]

Much has been made about how the high water mark of the program since Kill took over was the 2014 season. I agreed with this too until I looked more closely at the results from that season to this. I think people are giving the 2014 team a bit more credit than deserved and 2016 not enough.

To start, let's look at the strength of our opponents. I categorized each opponent into 4 different tiers.
Tier 1: CFB Playoff Contender
Tier 2: Ranked (at end of regular season), but not a CFB Contender
Tier 3: Unranked, bowl eligible
Tier 4: Not bowl eligible teams or FCS teams. Not all these teams are complete trash but they are all expected wins.

Now lets compare how each team did against the tiers.
Tier 1
2014
L 24-31 Ohio State
L 7-30 @TCU

2016
L 26-29 @PSU
L 17-31 @Wisconsin
Verdict: 2014 hung tough against OSU at home but got blown out against TCU. 2016 team hung with both PSU and UW and were arguably the better team for 3 quarters. ADVANTAGE 2016

Tier 2
2014
L 24-34 @Wisconsin

2016
L 7-14 Iowa
L 17-24 @Nebraska
Verdict: Not only did we play more ranked teams in 2016 but we kept each one to within 1 possession. ADVANTAGE 2016

Tier 3
2014
W 28-24 @Nebraska
W 51-14 Iowa
L 24-28 @Illinois
W 35-24 Mid Tennessee

2016
W 31-10 @Maryland
W 29-12 Northwestern
W 31-24 Colorado State
Verdict: 2014 played 1 more bowl eligible team but they dropped a bad one to Illinois. 2016 team took care of business in convincing fashion against all unranked bowl teams. ADVANTAGE 2016

Tier 4
2014
W 30-14 @Michigan
W 24-17 Northwestern
W 24-7 San Jose State
W 39-38 Purdue
W 22-20 E Illinois

2016
W 30-23 Oregon State
W 34-32 Rutgers
W 40-17 @Illinois
W 44-31 Purdue
W 58-28 Indiana State
Verdict: Both teams were 5-0 against non-bowl teams. Both teams had 2 really ugly wins...for 2014 it was against Purdue and E Illinois. For 2016 it was against Rutgers and Purdue. ADVANTAGE NEITHER

 

[everybody knows my name]

And the bowl game isn't played yet.

 

[Gopher04]

The big letter is in the tier 1/2... "L".

 

[howeda7]

Fair post. The reality is that 2014 felt much better/got the attention of the casual fan because we beat Michigan and Nebraska, even if they weren't very good and we creamed Iowa in a manner not seen in decades. There was no win this season that felt anywhere near as good as any of those, even if 2016 NW or Maryland were actually better teams (debatable).

 

[Gopher07]

^ agreed, the perception is that 2014 was much better because we beat three historically good/great programs in Michigan, Iowa and Nebraska. The perception that 2016 is mediocre is because we didn't beat any historically good/great programs. And when you're trying to put butts in the seats to attract kids to the program, perception matters.

 

[westcoastgopher11]

dope write up thanks

 

[Breakin' The Plane]

^ agreed, the perception is that 2014 was much better because we beat three historically good/great programs in Michigan, Iowa and Nebraska. The perception that 2016 is mediocre is because we didn't beat any historically good/great programs. And when you're trying to put butts in the seats to attract kids to the program, perception matters.

It also helps that they built on an 8-win season in 2013 with another, more impressive 8-win season.

 

[GopherWeatherGuy]

2014 Nebraska is significantly better than any of the 2016 tier 3 teams. Plus we won the pig by 37 points. 2014 wins that tier by a landslide.