Top 10 Finishes

W

WayzataHawkeye

Well-Known Member
How many B1G coaches have had four Top 10 national finishes at schools other than Michigan, Ohio State or Penn State? I am not counting Nebraska's Big 8/Big 12 years. I struggled to find one in the last 50 years.

Hint: Hayden Fry had 2.
 
Duffy Daugherty had 6 for Michigan State. Originally I thought you were referring to current coaches in the Big Ten, of which there are 3 who have been in the league for more than 3 years. I was wondering how far you could possibly go in cherry-picking stats.
 
This honestly just defends the point that Ferents was a pretty good coach about 10 years ago.
 
No, last Top Ten was #8 in final January 2010 poll.

Iowa has finished in the Top ten 40% of the time this past decade.
 
volhawk50 said:
Duffy Daugherty had 6 for Michigan State. Originally I thought you were referring to current coaches in the Big Ten, of which there are 3 who have been in the league for more than 3 years. I was wondering how far you could possibly go in cherry-picking stats.
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6 Top 10s at MSU is really impressive but it was the last one was in 1966 I believe. I thought Alvarez had more than 3 but those are the facts. Even John Cooper only had 3 Top 10s in the AP poll(5 in the Coaches poll).

Before anybody else points it out I know none of those guys made the kind of money KF makes.
 
How many Big Ten coaches have had top 10 finishes from schools other than Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, Northwestern, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Indiana, Purdue, MSU, Maryland, Rutgers, Iowa State, and Chicago??? I counted none in the last 50 years.
 
Hayden has like an 8 year stretch where Iowa won more big ten games than any other school.

Ferentz has done a good job here no doubt - but He isn't Hayden.

Hayden changed Iowa football forever.
 
Barry Alvarez finished in the Top 10 3 times, as well.
1993 and 1998 - finished #5
1999 - finished #4

Plus, they won all 3 of those Rose Bowls.
He was 3-1 against Jim Tressel (Ohio State)

2001-2003 were lean years at Wisconsin (9-15 in the Big Ten), but his last 2 years in 2004-2005, Wisconsin finished 3rd in the conference.

Wisconsin football before Barry Alvarez was just as bad as Iowa before Hayden Fry.
Amazing that Hayden lost to Barry once (and tied once).

Barry's run at Wisconsin is very similar to Hayden's run at Iowa.
Do you give the edge to Barry because of the 3-0 record in the Rose Bowl or to Hayden, because Hayden was the "teacher" and without Hayden, there'd be no Barry at Wisconsin?
 
I would give Hayden an edge because he broke the stranglehold that OSU & Michigan had on the Rose Bowl.

Barry gets an edge becasue he left the program in better shape than Hayden did.

Hard to pick between two great coaches.
 
Not much of a question since Michigan and Ohio State dominated the Big Ten for many years. Michigan State had a few years in the 60s under Duffy Daugherty, and Jack Mollenkopf at Purdue had 3 in the late 60s. Schools like Northwestern, Illinois, and Minnesota you have to go clear back to the 50s and 40s to find coaches that did it. Barry Alvarez only had 3 at Wisconsin as well as Bret Bielema, Indiana has only had 2 top 10 finishes in their history and has only finished ranked 5 times.

So my answer is zero. But I am interested in knowing where you are going with this. I think it is great that KF has led Iowa to 4 top 10 finishes, a couple of those years had Iowa in NC conversations. But the last time Iowa gave someone a pass because of how well he did in the past as a football coach set Iowa so far back that it took 19 years to have another winning season, Forest Evashevski. If KF runs this program into the ground I don't think you keep him as coach because of something he did in the past.
 
ssckelley said:
Not much of a question since Michigan and Ohio State dominated the Big Ten for many years. Michigan State had a few years in the 60s under Duffy Daugherty, and Jack Mollenkopf at Purdue had 3 in the late 60s. Schools like Northwestern, Illinois, and Minnesota you have to go clear back to the 50s and 40s to find coaches that did it. Barry Alvarez only had 3 at Wisconsin as well as Bret Bielema, Indiana has only had 2 top 10 finishes in their history and has only finished ranked 5 times.

So my answer is zero. But I am interested in knowing where you are going with this. I think it is great that KF has led Iowa to 4 top 10 finishes, a couple of those years had Iowa in NC conversations. But the last time Iowa gave someone a pass because of how well he did in the past as a football coach set Iowa so far back that it took 19 years to have another winning season, Forest Evashevski. If KF runs this program into the ground I don't think you keep him as coach because of something he did in the past.
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I have to give KF plenty of kudos for his four Top 10 finishes. He's done a terrific job overall. I just would like to see more success in years where Iowa DOESN'T finish Top 10. It seems with KF it's all or nothing - we're either Top 10 at the end of the year, or unranked. The one exception is in 2008 (January 2009) Iowa finished something like #23 in the final poll IIRC.

I believe that means 5 out of 14 years (this year being the 15th and is not over yet) that Iowa has finished the season ranked. Or 9 out of 14 we have been unranked. However you want to look at it.
 
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