I'm watching UM-MSU and glad to see the shiny yella britches. Then I thought that in my viewing lifetime, how each program is different now. Recent uncertainty aside, MSU matters a lot more now than they did in 1988 or so. Michigan matters less. Not in terms of this week or this season necessarily, but in terms of national program relevance.
MSU doesn't matter more than UM, but the gap has definitely decreased in the past 35 years.
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Around the country, if you consider the low-end from back then - like a K-State....they matter immensely more than they did back then AND they matter very little today. That's how dead a program it was.....they've come a LONG way and still don't matter. Kansas is below them now, but not much else.
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Wisconsin is trickier. They didn't matter at all in the late 80s. A lot has happened since then, but even in just the B1G totem pole, where are they today? Behind OSU, UM, PSU? MSU? Maybe 3rd, maybe 6th, I don't know. In what esteem a program is held is obviously an individual opinion, but there can be a consensus.
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Idk, just something that popped in my head.
Florida matters more now. Miami matters less. ND matters....maybe less? The same? Perhaps similarly as long as they have NBC.
I think Georgia is probably about the same. Oregon matters a lot more. Colorado a lot less. BYU has fallen off a cliff compared to where they were in the 80s.
OU mattered a lot back then, in the last seasons of Switzer, but may be even higher today. That's impressive!
If I did this 5 years ago, Clemson would have had fallen in esteem, but you can't say that anymore.
I think Washington was middling back then and matters less today. UCLA mattered more back then, Alabama far less. Syracuse mattered more back then, LSU less.
