First off calculating a strength of schedule preseason is pointless. No one knows how good each and every team on the schedule is going to be. That is why it is best to use historical averages as that post points out Iowa averages a harder schedule than ISU. The point I am making is that the Iowa program is much stronger, and it has been for a long time. Hayden Fry made sure of that. I see what ISU fans want to do though. They want to just use one game as the barometer of how good a program is. Okay this should be fun journey in time for you older fans. Let's go back to the Bob Commings era. Iowa beat ISU, Penn State, and UCLA in those years. Therefore the Iowa program was as strong if not stronger than all those programs in the 70s according to Cyclone fan logic.
You.Are.Wrong on every count.
I will grant you that calculating SoS on a detailed basis is hard to do every year but we are talking a few degrees of separation. We are talking a massive gap. ISU has the 17th toughest schedule in country. Iowa the 100th.
Averaging the results of a team that does not have the players or coaching personnel from those years is pointless. IF you were going to do that you might go back 4-5 years but saying the results, culture or talent of the Hayden Fry years has a bearing on the games now is asinine. If that is the case, why aren't the hoks whooping up on the Cyclones by 30+ points?
And why are you such a coward that you revert to single instance such as the one time the hoks beat UCLA or a Penn State some 30 years ago.
Please explain how a team that has lost to another team 3 of the last 4 years can be considered any better than that team? That is the fact staring you right in the face that you won't address. How is that 1 game and not 4? What better measure is there of the relative strength of two teams as compared to each other. You yourself say that relative strength of opponents is hard to establish. Or may be it is the superior football wisdom Hok fans are born with that let you declare it so?
The only point your are making is that you are still in 1990's hokeye dreamland.