I'm younger than most posters here. Even the Charlie Frye Zips teams were before my time as a fan so my Zips football fandom has been bleak. That said, two of my more fond Zips football fan moments were beating Northwestern and going to the Big House and nearly knocking off Michigan. I still claim the refs blew the call by not calling the jersey grab by the Michigan defender.
You seem to be more optimistic than me. I feel we would be 1-3 regardless of who we played this year, unless we were able to schedule multiple FCS schools. That's not to say I want to schedule 3 P4 a year in perpetuity. I do however like having 1-2 of them on the schedule that way it has opportunities to create those moments. Preferably against programs like Northwestern, Indiana, and yes Rutgers. Avoiding the OSU, Alabama, and Oregon's of the world.
What's made me grow apathetic to the football program is all the 0-3 win seasons in conference play. You can go 1-3 OOC and still make a bowl game game by going 5-3 in MAC play. The MAC looks like it might be better this season, but it had previously been historically bad. The MAC East was probably the weakest division in all of college football. We've had plenty of opportunities to pad our win total in conference play, but failed to capitalize.