Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

yup, looks like Hayden got his scheduling worked out in 85 - probably had those early 5 seasons already scheduled when he took the job

Yes,  things changed in Iowa's schedule starting in 1985.  Although the non-conference was not easy every year. 1987  and 1992 were both years where Iowa play 4 non-conference regular season games against P4 equivalent schools. 

Although to be fair,  both Iowa St and Kansas St were considered awful during that time.  But Iowa also played both Miami-Florida and Colorado in one year in 1992, who had both recently won national championships. So Hayden did not mind a tough schedule every now and again, at least until 1992.

I would say Iowa flat out gave up trying to make a tough schedule around 1995,  which was the first year they played Northern Iowa.  Still, even in Haydens last year in 1998, Iowa played both Arizona and Iowa St in non-conference.  So playing 2 P4 equivalent schools in non-conference was still the norm then.

I had not realized when real pastries started showing up on schedules OOC.  I was scanning the UGA slates in the 60s and the opponents were pretty solid, P5 kinds of teams, they played VMI one year.  In 1985, they played Baylor, Clemson, South Carolina, and GaTech.  In 1986, Richmond showed up, 1988 William and Mary, 1990 Eastern Carolina, so they edged into one clear pastry a year OOC.  Today it's 2 or 3.  1991 they played Cal State Fullerton and Western Carolina, so there it started.

TV simultaneously made everything better and also completely ruined college football.

well, TV money ruined CFB

TV coverage alone would have been OK
I think

As far as body-bag games are concerned it is the same story for Ohio State that others have shared here.  A good example is to look at the four times that Ohio State played Oklahoma:

Ohio State and Oklahoma had a home-and-home separated by six years in 1977 and 1983 then another in 2016/2017.  Curiously the road team is 4-0 in those games with the Buckeyes owning two wins in Norman and the Sooners owning two wins in Columbus.  Anyway, here are Ohio State's other OOC games from each of those years:

• 1977:  Miami, FL; SMU
• 1983:  Oregon - The Buckeyes only had two OOC games because the league was doing a full, 9-game round-robin
• 2016:  BGSU, Tulsa
• 2017:  Army, UNLV