Not to disrespect the great Bison teams of the 80s since it's really tough to compare teams that played 30 years apart from each other but now that it's the offseason we might as well debate what team was better between the now two gold standards for Bison football in the D1 era. Below I listed how they all broke down statistically compared to each other:



The stats say kind of what you'd expect if you go through position group by position group and compare the two teams. 2013 had the better defense and 2018 has the better offence but both the 2013 offense and the 2018 defense were still dominant. I think the 2013 team probably had better special teams as well.

I think most would assume the 2013 team had a stronger SOS due to the K-State game but I think it's pretty comparable. I think the MVFC as a conference was better in 2018 than it was in 2013 and the 2018 team definitely had tougher playoff opponents facing 3 seeded teams whereas the 2013 only faced one (and that was the #7 seed).

I believe I saw someone mention that Sagarin had the 2013 team rated about 3 points higher but it's kind of tough to compare that season over season since it's really only a measure of how good the team is in relation to the rest of college football.

I think in the end I still have to lean towards the 2013 team being a hair better. Just the fact that we can debate the merits of two 15-0 teams in the last 5 years at our school is bonkers but it's a long 233 days until Target Field...