If the playoff takes the top 4 (and we're rounding) the measurement should be how many top 5 teams has he defeated?

This could be the easy measurement (top 5 at the time) or the harder one (finished top 5)

But to quote a criminally underrated coach, Michael Pettaway Tomlin, the standard is the standard.

Seriously? Are you just trying to rile up Steelers fans? You act like he is nipping at Bill Belichick's heels.

After lucking into a Super Bowl win in his first season with Cowher’s players. He loses to teams he has no business losing to and can’t beat great teams. See Patriots 50X and Green Bay, hell even the Raiders own him.

of wrong on Tomlin.

Tomlin won the Super Bowl in his second season, not his first.

As far as them being Cowher's players, Cowher shat the bed with those same players in his last season by starting 2-6 and missing the playoffs.
Cowher shat the bed in the 1994 AFC title game against the 9 point dog Chargers.
Cowher shat the bed in the 2001 AFC title game against the 10 point dog Pats; largely due to the special teams snafus that he failed to fix for the entire season.

Cowher underachieved every bit as much as Tomlin has, especially considering Cowher had both the Bus and Lebeau's defense in their prime.
I will grant you Tomlin has underachieved over his tenure. Terrible is overstating it.

He "shat the couch".

Dire Straits - Wembley '85

Seems like it is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Any team we beat would have 1 loss, so you are basically saying teams that only lost 1-2 other games (maybe 3 with bowl). Mathematically there aren't that many teams that would fit such a criteria in any given year.

Sort of like strength of schedule adding back the losses you inflicted on the teams you played.

Even though that call was utter and complete bullshit. Bullshit calls are part of the game, and it's a loss. To claim otherwise is what a Michigan fan would do.

Which doesn't include Florida State 2014.

2010: 0

2011: 1
-MSU (11-3 #10/#11)

2012: 2
-Stanford (12-2 #6/#7)
-OU (10-3 #15)

2013: 3
-MSU (13-1 #3)
-ASU (10-4 #20/#21)
-USC (10-4 #19)

2014: 0 (unless you count FSU 13-1 #5/#6)

2015: 0

2016: 0

2017: 2
-MSU (10-3 #15/#16)
-USC (11-3 #10/#12)

2018: 2
-Michigan (10-3 #14)
-Syracuse (10-3 #15)

2019: Probably 0
-Virginia (currently 9-3)


Thoughts:
-But for the Little Giants trick play and a missed expired clock, Kelly would've gotten his claws in all four of Dantonio's 10+ win seasons when they played each other.
-2013 was weirder than I remember
-2014 through 2016...woof.

I see a mix of one year wonders and teams that had down years or underachieving years. In short not one team in the playoff contention. Beating the 12-2 Stanford team was clearly the best victory. That one was a good one.

However, we weren’t elite that year. We were 9-4 with ineligible players. The football world didn’t think we’d measured ourselves against a great team and proven ourselves great, it thought we took advantage of some penalty flags and squeaked out a win against a better team. And that is true.

Don’t get me wrong. It is the one time in the last many many years that we played spoiler to someone else’s great season instead of just coming close to doing so and flopping at the last second, which happens a lot (Nebraska 2000, Southern Cal 2005, FSU 214 — note that each of these teams ultimately proved to be a bit overhyped). But I’d like that win a lot more if it weren’t a BC-esque upset of a better teams. I like the Stanford and Oklahoma 2012 wins more.

They would have smoked us in a rematch. We definitely did not get their "A game".

Do you compare them to 2002 Miami of Florida?

For the Greatest Team of All-Time, they sure lost.

Probably better than OSU 2002/Texas 05, and lost on a razor thin margin when everything went the other team's way. Both of those teams were very good teams in their own right

Do you remember following the 2005 season? They were supposedly the greatest team of all time. Bush and White were Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis and Matt Leinart was the reigning Heisman winner headed for a repeat. When Bush was not taken first overall, it was derided as one of the biggest errors in drafting history (it was not a mistake at all and Bush was not even the best RB in his draft class).

In retrospect, they struggled against two inferior opponents during the regular season and while they ran up gaudy numbers against poor opponents, only their blowout of Oregon stands out as an impressive win.

Admittedly Miami 2002 got similar treatment, as did FSU 2000.

The five games on your list from 2012 and 2013 were vacated. Kelly gets no credit for them. Zero. None. Absolutely none.

I am sure USC fans block out the reggie bush years

Trumpeting games we were forced to vacate because we cheated is dumb. We shouldn't claim we won those games because we didn't. We cheated, and we vacated them.

And referencing USC fans like I should give two sh*ts about what they do is pretty dumb too.

Bowl games was 12. Not to mention schedule was way harder and that was in 6 years vs. 10.

easier than a 10-win season now Lou had 19 wins over 9-win or better power programs during his 11 years. And obviously, both Lou and Devine had the all important wins over top 5 programs, and even more important, national championships.

teams, and the FSU game. 6 wins over teams in 14-20 range.

That's one of the reasons why this team is on the outside looking in for NY6 bowls. BK's record in tier 1 postseason games is another

perhaps the worst combination of talent available/talent wasted in this century of ND football outside of 2009.

What I remember from that season:
- We played like crap at night in Ann Arbor (sounds familiar)
- MSU was an ugly, physical game that wherein Kelly forced the issue on their CBs
- Stoops schooled us ten ways to Sunday at home
- ASU was a match up of two talented, under-achieving teams in which we got more bounces than they did
- The defense just suffocated SC that year
- The Pitt game was one of the biggest screwjobs I can remember - one of the worst-refereed games I can recall
- We came out flat in Palo Alto and Stanford bullied us for most of the game

At least 2 in each loss. We had 8 players drafted that year, 5 in the first 89 picks. Result: 9-4 w/ a Pinstripe Bowl win.

W/ decent QB play, we could have won 10+ and maybe washed some of the stink off from the end of 2012.

The Oklahoma game was particularly bad. After Rees threw a pick 6 on the third play of the game, BK had him throwing again in the second series. It was super windy but, as we know, the weather should never influence one's play-calling strategy. Rees threw a second pick on the very first play of the second possession, and it was 14-0 Oklahoma just a few minutes into the game.

It turned out that OU didn't have much of a run defense, and we ended up rushing for 229 yards on 29 carries (including a big day by the late George Atkinson III). Of course Kelly didn't have the patience to test that out at the beginning of the game.

I don't view 2015 the same - even as bad as BVG was, that defense was obliterated with injuries in the last quarter of the year.

With the defensive injuries?

Look at each of those rosters. 2015 may have actually been able to be a national championship year for BK if he didn’t have BVG. That team was loaded offensively and had at worst the 2nd-best defensive player in the nation. The most talented team in the nation (OSU) didn’t make the playoff. Unfortunately, BK is unlikely to catch lightning in a bottle like that again:

Going 8-5 with 2011’s roster is a borderline fireable offense on its own merit.

2011 should've been a hands down BCS team. That was the strangest, and most frustrating 0-2 start ever.

2015 was the year I'm sure we were all circling after 2012. In an alternate reality where Everette Golson does his work, Kelly doesn't ruin quarterbacks, and Brian Van Gorder doesn't exist, 2012-15 should've been the run we'd been waiting for. Every one of those teams should've made major bowls with at least one after 2012 playing for the chip and, for all we know, winning it.

Then Kelly could've gone to the NFL. 2016 never happens. Everyone is so happy that we are just now starting to grumble that Coach Mike Sanford might be in just a weee bit over his head.

Syracuse in 2018, USC in 2017, MSU in 2017, ASU in 2013, USC in 2013, MSU in 2011.

Of course, even they have a better win than Kelly during his time at ND (beating Clemson).

You can argue that in certain years that they are bottom of the barrel and there would be no argument, but they are P5 as much as Rutgers and Northwestern and Vanderbilt are.