[washingtonismoney]

I can't say I was watching Stanford teams back in 2001, but it's hard to take the view that the Seattle Bowl team was anywhere close to the 2009-13 standard seriously.

The team went 2-1 against ranked teams. That's solid, but here's how it compares from 2009-13 period:
2009: 3-0
2010: 2-1
2011: 3-2
2012: 5-1
2013: 6-1

So the 2001 team was close to the bottom in terms of number of ranked teams and number of wins. Was it especially dominant? Here's the average margin of victory:
2001: 6.92 ppg
2009: 9 ppg
2010: 22.9 ppg
2011: 20.4 ppg
2012: 10.7 ppg
2013: 13.3 ppg

Here's how Sagarin stacks them up, in his PREDICTOR ranking:
2001: #20
2009: #24
2010: #1
2011: #5
2012: #11
2013: #4

The 2001 team was solid, sure, but nowhere near the standard set through most of the Harbaugh and Shaw era. There'd be extremely polite rioting in the streets of Palo Alto if Shaw trotted out a team as lowly at the 2001 team, given the criticism he's gotten for the 2013 team.

[washingtonismoney]

I can't say I was watching Stanford teams back in 2001, but it's hard to take the view that the Seattle Bowl team was anywhere close to the 2009-13 standard seriously.

The team went 2-1 against ranked teams. That's solid, but here's how it compares from 2009-13 period:
2009: 3-0
2010: 2-1
2011: 3-2
2012: 5-1
2013: 6-1

So the 2001 team was close to the bottom in terms of number of ranked teams and number of wins. Was it especially dominant? Here's the average margin of victory:
2001: 6.92 ppg
2009: 9 ppg
2010: 22.9 ppg
2011: 20.4 ppg
2012: 10.7 ppg
2013: 13.3 ppg

Here's how Sagarin stacks them up, in his PREDICTOR ranking:
2001: #20
2009: #24
2010: #1
2011: #5
2012: #11
2013: #4

The 2001 team was solid, sure, but nowhere near the standard set through most of the Harbaugh and Shaw era. There'd be extremely polite rioting in the streets of Palo Alto if Shaw trotted out a team as lowly at the 2001 team, given the criticism he's gotten for the 2013 team.