So, I guess the pertinent question is, but who did you beat? I mean, you can point out that most of your losses are to "good" teams, but just because you kept it close in some of your losses, doesn't mean that you didn't lose (I mean, unless you want to embrace your inner Nebraska fan, but I really really recommend you don't go down that road....). If you want to play that game, Purdue's losses were to
Notre Dame: 11-1 ranked 5th
OSU: 10-2 ranked 6th
Wisconsin: 8-4 ranked 27th-ish (ORV)
Minnesota: 8-4 ranked 29th-ish (ORV)
None of those are "bad" losses, as in, at least every single one had a winning record (yes, we're looking at you Florida....)
So let's look at the other side of the coin. Let's see who you beat:
Bowling Green: 4-8 / 2-6
Tennessee Tech: 3-8 / 1-5
Missouri: 6-6 / 3-5
South Carolina: 6-6 / 3-5
Kentucky: 9-3 / 5-3
South Alabama: 5-7 / 2-6
Vanderbilt: 2-10 / 0-8
By my count, you beat exactly ONE decent team, by three points, in a game where you were out-yarded by 150 yards. And while the Kentucky win is a decent win, as a note, Kentucky themselves only beat a single team that had a winning record (and that was Chattanooga, who was 6-5)
So only one win was against a team that had a winning record (And let's be honest here, the only reason that Missouri and South Carolina even made it to 6-6 is because they had games against teams with directions in their names, ie. Southeast Missouri State, North Texas, Eastern Illinois, East Carolina, etc.). Every one of the teams you beat, sans Kentucky, had a losing record in their conference.
Purdue has wins against:
Oregon State: 7-5 / 5-4
Connecticut: 1-11 (our one equivalent directional U cupcake that we beat 49-0)
Illinois: 5-7 / 4-5
Iowa: 10-3 / 7-2 (West Division Champs - NY6 Bowl Team)
Nebraska: 3-9 / 1-8
Michigan State: 10-2 / 7-2 (the equivalent of Pitt I would think, since they are playing them in the Peach Bowl)
Northwestern: 3-9 / 1-8
Indiana: 2-10 / 0-9
So to compare:
Iowa >= Kentucky (about a wash, maybe a slight Iowa lean because they were West champs and had 4 wins against teams with a winning record compared to Kentucky's one)
MSU > Missouri (not even arguable)
Oregon State > USC (arguable, but OSU has better wins against teams with winning records Utah, Arizona State, and Washington State compared to USC's one win over a team with a winning record, ECU)
Illinois > South Alabama (Yes, Illinois can at least beat a power 5 team, so they are better)
Bowling Green >= Nebraska (I'll give BG the slight edge here, but that's solely off of their one good win @ Minnesota)
Northwestern > Tennessee Tech
Indiana = Vanderbilt (though a game between them would be entertaining on the level of ineptitude alone)
(and we'll just throw out Connecticut all together. Hell, if Vandy can beat them, then it really isn't relevant to the conversation and Purdue had an extra win anyways).
So that's 5-1-1 in Purdue's favor.
And before you go off on the "Well, we played a tougher schedule" argument, type into Google "College Football Strength of Schedule" and look at the rankings of schedule from the first few sites. (Spoiler alert: It will not help your argument).
So yeah. None of this really means didley squat as to who is going to win. It will come down to match-ups and playmakers, but the whole point of this exercise was just to point out that your schedule is not the basis of an argument you should be crowing about.
Last edited:
