Right - completely ignores all the success Michigan State has had against Michigan, including an 8-6 record going back to 2010 (their winning coaches, of course, are not currently active). Wisconsin is 4-3 against Michigan going back to 2010 (noting they do not play every year). Ohio State is really the only true outlier in the conference and that is because of this:
Average Rivals Recruiting Rankings by Team (since 2014, Franklin's first year):
Ohio State - 3.75
Michigan - 15.5
Penn State - 14.1
Michigan has a massive outlier in 2015 when they had the 50th(!!!) ranked class in the country. But, they're generally not a lot better than Penn State, if at all. Which is where 'expectations' arise - it will take A LOT of things to go right to beat OSU (which really, should be treated like Bama) in a given year, and a lot of them did this year (new QB, key starters out, playing at home, etc.), which is why people are upset at the result. Beating Michigan should definitely happen more often than it does given how close our roster talent is (the Blue Chip Ratio puts PSU's roster ahead of Michigan's this year, noting it's in aggregate, and doesn't account for who is/isn't playing).
Consider Joe's 2005 team - the recruiting rankings for the 2002 - 2005 classes were as follows: 21, 93, 14, 25. The 2005 team famously went 11-1 and finished 3rd. If you remove the 2000 - 2004 seasons, and just go with Joe's record from 2005 to 2011, he wins two Big Ten Championships, has three top ten finishes, goes 4-3 in Bowls and has the following recruiting class rankings:
2005 - 25
2006 - 6
2007 - 24
2008 - 43
2009 - 24
2010 - 12
2011 - 35
He had ONE class ranked in the top ten. How would our current coaching staff do with the 43rd ranked recruiting class in the country? So - expectations? We should beat Michigan a lot more than we do.
