My figuring is based on past precedent of our board fanatics: win, lose, or anything else and the noise can become...noise.
We've lost games we should've won (SHU, OSU, UM) but with them should be a healthy dose of perspective: SHU was a letdown game/lack of energy/OSU hangover, what-have-you. OSU was not the team's fault (though we can speculate about events leading to the conclusion and what could've been done to avoid said conclusion.) UM might be a case of THIS edition of our team needing to learn to play for the full game, etc.
As opposed to some lackluster play resulting in losses last year (which deserved the whining at times.)
But you did write it well: "require nothing but sound effort to defeat them" so IF we drop a game to either, one would hope it was not due to a lack of effort or desire.
But that's just me. Different fanatics deal with things a different way,