Dabo's harder schedule trumps your original weak ACC comment. When Dabo started the ACC wasn't as weak as the present. Versus ranked teams, while playing, first 2 years, Dabo 5-5; PJ 2-3
Dabo year 2: 6-7......played 4 teams when ranked 1-4
Dabo year3: 10-4...played 6 teams when ranked 4-2
PJ year2: 7-6.....played 1 team when ranked 0-1
PJ year 3: 11-2 played 4 teams when ranked 2-2
Dabo played as many (or more) ranked teams each year than PJ has played in the last two years combined.
Don't get me wrong, I like the Goph's trajectory and love your optimism, but I'll temper my enthusiasm and hope for Clemson-ish results until it happens.
Well how convenient that you picked the rankings at the time of the games, lol. Kind of manipulative if you ask me. Who cares how OVERRATED a team was when someone beat them? Well, unless you are trying to manipulate the narrative to fit the argument you WANT to make? Miami in 2010 was ranked when Clemson lost to them, and yet Miami STILL dropped so far after that they didn't even receive a single vote by the end of the season. So hardly worthy of being considered tough competition.
I prefer to look at the EOS rankings, the only ones that actually matter.
And I'll admit two things, I didn't remember Maryland was in the ACC at that time, AND RANKED?, lol, yeah, and as soon as they got to the B1G they haven't been ranked since, have they? Same with Rutgers, and look what happened to Nebraska, and even PSU(haven't gone undefeated since). Funny how that works. Teams get ranked playing in weak overrated conferences, move to the B1G and then can't ever seem to match their past accomplishments? And I forgot that Clemson played VT twice in 2011. Those 2 games are the difference I missed. All I saw was UMn played 6 games vs Top 20 teams winning 3 of them, with Clemson only playing 4 and losing all of them.
Well, looking only at EOS rankings, Minnesota played 5 Top 15 ranked teams in Fleck's 2nd & 3rd seasons, while Clemson played just 2 in Dabo's 2nd and 3rd seasons. Total Top 25s? 8 for Fleck, 10 for Dabo.
Another interesting stat, Fleck won 3 games vs Top 20 ranked teams, Dabo won ZERO.
And Fleck lost to 3 unranked teams in his 2nd season, but NONE in his 3rd.
Dabo lost to 4 unranked teams in his 2nd season, and to 2 in his 3rd, so TWICE AS MANY LOSSES to unranked teams than Fleck.
Another interesting stat, Fleck won BOTH of his Bowl Games, beating an ACC team and Auburn, something Dabo had 2 chances to do these 2 seasons, but failed to do. And Dabo lost BOTH of his Bowl games, against USF, lol, and Dabo lost his bowl game in 2011 to WVU by a score of 33-70.
SEVENTY???
So if you think Clemson's playing 1 more Top 25 ranked each of those two seasons means more than Minnesota playing the same number of Top 20 teams the 2nd year and twice as many the 3rd year, well, then our definitions of tough are not exactly in-line with each other.