Thinking about best and worse cases for the upcoming season.
There are two games that we should absolutely win easily: UTEP and Northern Iowa, we are just simply much better than they are.
Purdue, Illinois and UCLA shouldn't be very good this year, we should be decent favorites. As long as we don't self destruct these should be wins.
Colorado, Rutgers and Indiana are teams that we are better than, but they are capable of capitalizing on a mistake and winning. We don't have a lot of margin of error.
Wisconsin and Iowa, honestly these are toss up games that could go either way this year.
USC has shown plenty of issues under Riley, but they are a very talented team and I like their new DC and think he is a good one. Talent level just isn't there yet to beat USC in California.
tOSU is just a better team than we are right now. We play our best and it still won't be enough unless tOSU completely self destructs.
Ceiling, best case scenario and we play very clean football: 10-2, losses to tOSU and USC. I think that's the best we can do this year.
Floor, things that we are expecting and hoping for don't improve. 5-7, losses to tOSU, USC, Wisconsin, Iowa, Rutgers, Indiana, Colorado. That would be absolute worst case.
What will happen is most likely somewhere in between. So we will assume the 5 wins from the worst case: UTEP, UNI, Purdue, UCLA, Illinois and the 2 losses from the best case: USC and tOSU. It's the other 5 games that will make or break the season.
Colorado, Indiana and Rutgers. I think we lose 1 game from this group that we should be favored in. Just think we will have a bad game, with a true Freshman QB making some mistakes. Hopefully it's not Colorado.
Wisconsin and Iowa, we certainly could beat both of them, or lose both of them. They just aren't great teams, but some how are always good. I'm guessing a split right now. I think Fickle will have some issues in his second year and will lose to us in Lincoln and Ferentz will have a slightly better offense and pull off a close game in Iowa City.
Anything between 5-7 to 10-2 is possible, but I think 8-4 is most likely. Seven or more wins this season and I think we should be pretty happy with how things are going.
10-2 = Perfect season
9-3 = We are way ahead of schedule
8-4 = Right were we should be
7-5 = Need a few tweaks but we are on the right track
6-6 = Disappointed, what needs to be fixed?
5-7 = Major changes needed
There are two games that we should absolutely win easily: UTEP and Northern Iowa, we are just simply much better than they are.
Purdue, Illinois and UCLA shouldn't be very good this year, we should be decent favorites. As long as we don't self destruct these should be wins.
Colorado, Rutgers and Indiana are teams that we are better than, but they are capable of capitalizing on a mistake and winning. We don't have a lot of margin of error.
Wisconsin and Iowa, honestly these are toss up games that could go either way this year.
USC has shown plenty of issues under Riley, but they are a very talented team and I like their new DC and think he is a good one. Talent level just isn't there yet to beat USC in California.
tOSU is just a better team than we are right now. We play our best and it still won't be enough unless tOSU completely self destructs.
Ceiling, best case scenario and we play very clean football: 10-2, losses to tOSU and USC. I think that's the best we can do this year.
Floor, things that we are expecting and hoping for don't improve. 5-7, losses to tOSU, USC, Wisconsin, Iowa, Rutgers, Indiana, Colorado. That would be absolute worst case.
What will happen is most likely somewhere in between. So we will assume the 5 wins from the worst case: UTEP, UNI, Purdue, UCLA, Illinois and the 2 losses from the best case: USC and tOSU. It's the other 5 games that will make or break the season.
Colorado, Indiana and Rutgers. I think we lose 1 game from this group that we should be favored in. Just think we will have a bad game, with a true Freshman QB making some mistakes. Hopefully it's not Colorado.
Wisconsin and Iowa, we certainly could beat both of them, or lose both of them. They just aren't great teams, but some how are always good. I'm guessing a split right now. I think Fickle will have some issues in his second year and will lose to us in Lincoln and Ferentz will have a slightly better offense and pull off a close game in Iowa City.
Anything between 5-7 to 10-2 is possible, but I think 8-4 is most likely. Seven or more wins this season and I think we should be pretty happy with how things are going.
10-2 = Perfect season
9-3 = We are way ahead of schedule
8-4 = Right were we should be
7-5 = Need a few tweaks but we are on the right track
6-6 = Disappointed, what needs to be fixed?
5-7 = Major changes needed
