season in which we got any lower than 4th.
Here is the Sagarin ratings by decade.
http://assets.espn.go.com/photo/2009/1004/cbe1.pdf
MU was 14th in the 1980's, OU was 12th, ku 19th, and KSU 34th. ku had a really good team in 1986, right after they started cheating in high amount after the failed Ted Owen years. That was really the only good team that had that decade. You could make a very valid case that KSU was actually the 3rd fiddle of the Big 8 in those years and that ku was 4th.