Maybe he had the ideal combination of lack of excessive upper body muscle and significant lower body strength allowing him to cut back like a wildman? A big, muscular top heavy back would have ended up running right into the other defender on the outside and got tackled losing the game.
We’re really an odd situation. You’ve got our track record, same as Bammer etc but on our level not theirs. Just as you can expect they’ll be in the Top 5, you can expect we’ll be 1-3 in Coastal. Based on coaching turnover, #1 is unlikely. #2 would be a nice surprise. #3 is pretty much where we land and if we underperform it would be disappointing. What’s debatable is if the Coastal #3 would be 3-5 or 4-4 in conference which I think’s likely. That pretty much puts us at 6 or 7 wins in regular season.
I think you misunderstand what I’m saying or I am not being clear. I don’t think we will be 3-9. It may take us a bit of time to figure out what we do well but I do expect to be competitive and with some breaks can be bowl eligible. What I am saying is it is not unreasonable for the “experts” to have the low expectations most have for us based on how they evaluate teams. I’m also saying it has nothing to do do with respect or lack thereof, it’s simply how you evaluate teams when you are evaluating all of college football and don’t have the time to get too deep on any of them. It also doesn’t matter one bit.
Sure. No argument here on that, and that's my point. Pretty much this system is accurate except where it isn't...which is to be expected and perfectly okay 'cause it was accurate where it was, right?
Is this system provably any better than just 'eyeballing' it? I think it is unlikely that all this math significantly improves upon just plain guessing based on what we see. So why bother and why try to make the guess seem more scientific when it's just justified guessing? To sell stuff, I'm thinking...which makes it even more suspect. I think I'll go to my local palm reader to see what she thinks...her system is likely just as valid (well, as long as she watches a lot of football).
Sometimes having a lot of certain returning starters is the WORST thing that could happen to a program. It might be just as well to start over with people who WANT to pay the price to play ball. Nonetheless, your reasoning is irrefutable. By any reasonable standard, we should be expected to do poorly this year for the reasons you have listed. "I have yet to see an actual objective reason for thinking we won't struggle" Indeed, neither have I but then, we aren't the ones doing the playing or the coaching and for that we should be thankful. Just tell young men that they can't do this or they won't do that and see what happens. They will often respond to the challenge in unforeseen ways. But that is football.
I promise I'm not picking on you or trying to stir up anything, but I laughed really hard (and cried at the same time) at this.
Well outside Citadel & Temple I damn near nailed it!
I didn't "nail" anything. My preseason prediction was to win 5 and possibly 6. Not even close. In all likelihood, we will end the season with 3 wins. We will have had two memorable wins over Miami (always enjoyable) and NC State, a couple of losses where we played well such as UVA and a couple we played really bad such as the Citadel and Virginia Tech. A mixed bag all around as most outside pundits would have predicted. One thing NOBODY would have predicted is that the same Miami team that lost so miserably to Georgia Tech would turn around and win three in a row including a sterling effort against FSU that had their fans talking about winning the Coastal and playing in the Orange Bowl. Lo and behold FIU wins its first game against a Power 5 opponent and sends the Canes into another tailspin complete with "Fire Manny" airplane banners. Another crazy year about to come to a close in the Coastal Division.
Of course I was being disingenuous. I bet a lot of money on 4 wins and 4 wins as a push. That Citadel game rally hosed me bad but to be completely honest I thought 5 wins was where we’d end up, 6 max and 4 at the worst.
Yeah I know. Didn’t do my due diligence on the experience/capabilities of the staff and bought into the hype. Not my finest moment.
