With all the talk of our tough schedule, I think the Big 10 Schedule did set up well for Minnesota with regards to the Home and Road opponents for 2009 and 2010.
For 2009 we are playing Wisconsin, Purdue, MSU and Illinois at home. This gave us a chance to beat Wisconsin, which would have been much tougher in Madison, a decent chance against MSU where we would be heavy underdogs in East Lansing, and hopefully relatively easy wins against Purdue and Illinois that may have still been a struggle on the road.
Likewise, we get Northwestern, PSU, OSU, and Iowa on the road. Chances are we were going to get crushed by OSU, PSU and Iowa no matter where we played, so better it be on the road then waste a home game. With a little luck we can pull a 4-4 record out of this schedule.
If the home and road games were reversed, I have a very hard time seeing more then 3 wins there. The only home win would likely have been NW, and we'd be lucky to win both the Illinois and Purdue road games, much less the other two.
Next year, the teams reamain the same and the home and road should indeed reverse. If we improve as Brewster and many on here think we will, this works out well. We should (better) have a fighting chance in home games against OSU, PSU and Iowa, while also being good enough to beat MSU and Wisconsin on the road (along with Illinois and Purdue). It's not so unreasonable to see a 6-2 record coming from that if the expected improvement actually occurs.
For 2009 we are playing Wisconsin, Purdue, MSU and Illinois at home. This gave us a chance to beat Wisconsin, which would have been much tougher in Madison, a decent chance against MSU where we would be heavy underdogs in East Lansing, and hopefully relatively easy wins against Purdue and Illinois that may have still been a struggle on the road.
Likewise, we get Northwestern, PSU, OSU, and Iowa on the road. Chances are we were going to get crushed by OSU, PSU and Iowa no matter where we played, so better it be on the road then waste a home game. With a little luck we can pull a 4-4 record out of this schedule.
If the home and road games were reversed, I have a very hard time seeing more then 3 wins there. The only home win would likely have been NW, and we'd be lucky to win both the Illinois and Purdue road games, much less the other two.
Next year, the teams reamain the same and the home and road should indeed reverse. If we improve as Brewster and many on here think we will, this works out well. We should (better) have a fighting chance in home games against OSU, PSU and Iowa, while also being good enough to beat MSU and Wisconsin on the road (along with Illinois and Purdue). It's not so unreasonable to see a 6-2 record coming from that if the expected improvement actually occurs.