FanDuel sets over/under at 4 wins

[SOWEGA Jacket]

Why do you think we gave CGC a 7 year contract? The next two years might be rough while CGC gets his players recruited and his systems installed.

Outside of Clemson and UGA which team is a lock to say they beat GT? The Coastal is pretty darn mediocre right now. The only person who scares me in the Coastal is the UVA QB. Fuentes? His own fans have turned on him. UNC? Is Marquise coming back? Duke? They lost more than we did. Miami? Their QB is a bigger question mark than ours. South Florida is a solid team but they aren’t scaring me in the least. NC State or Pitt? Blewitt is gone! NC State is trending up and should beat us but but it’s not a given. Bottom line is we aren’t playing world beaters. I like our players regardless of scheme or who our coach is. I think we have QB’s who will make DC’s worry due to their athletiscm. I also believe our defense will see marked improvement. And I love the promise of our special teams. With our mediocre schedule and young playmakers I think we are going to be just fine.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

Outside of Clemson and UGA which team is a lock to say they beat GT? The Coastal is pretty darn mediocre right now. The only person who scares me in the Coastal is the UVA QB. Fuentes? His own fans have turned on him. UNC? Is Marquise coming back? Duke? They lost more than we did. Miami? Their QB is a bigger question mark than ours. South Florida is a solid team but they aren’t scaring me in the least. NC State or Pitt? Blewitt is gone! NC State is trending up and should beat us but but it’s not a given. Bottom line is we aren’t playing world beaters. I like our players regardless of scheme or who our coach is. I think we have QB’s who will make DC’s worry due to their athletiscm. I also believe our defense will see marked improvement. And I love the promise of our special teams. With our mediocre schedule and young playmakers I think we are going to be just fine.

You had me until the part in bold.

 

[iceeater1969]

Mean the season where 4th & 5th string became starter

Thats the season after we had sr and r sr at the skill positions ( except qb) Also we had the lone rising jr Andrews leave. As bad luck would have it injuries were in backfield. If u have to have injuies rhey would have been better in ol. After mid season we benched 2 of them. Imo, 15 was great coaching even though w lost all our real games.

 

[Ibeeballin]

Outside of Clemson and UGA which team is a lock to say they beat GT? The Coastal is pretty darn mediocre right now. The only person who scares me in the Coastal is the UVA QB. Fuentes? His own fans have turned on him. UNC? Is Marquise coming back? Duke? They lost more than we did. Miami? Their QB is a bigger question mark than ours. South Florida is a solid team but they aren’t scaring me in the least. NC State or Pitt? Blewitt is gone! NC State is trending up and should beat us but but it’s not a given. Bottom line is we aren’t playing world beaters. I like our players regardless of scheme or who our coach is. I think we have QB’s who will make DC’s worry due to their athletiscm. I also believe our defense will see marked improvement. And I love the promise of our special teams. With our mediocre schedule and young playmakers I think we are going to be just fine.

pretty much my take but NCST is not trending up. They also have QB questions and replacing two 1k WRs

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

Outside of Clemson and UGA which team is a lock to say they beat GT? The Coastal is pretty darn mediocre right now. The only person who scares me in the Coastal is the UVA QB. Fuentes? His own fans have turned on him. UNC? Is Marquise coming back? Duke? They lost more than we did. Miami? Their QB is a bigger question mark than ours. South Florida is a solid team but they aren’t scaring me in the least. NC State or Pitt? Blewitt is gone! NC State is trending up and should beat us but but it’s not a given. Bottom line is we aren’t playing world beaters. I like our players regardless of scheme or who our coach is. I think we have QB’s who will make DC’s worry due to their athletiscm. I also believe our defense will see marked improvement. And I love the promise of our special teams. With our mediocre schedule and young playmakers I think we are going to be just fine.

I'd say Pitt, UVA, Duke, Miami, NCSU, and VT are losses as well. Wouldn't be surprised if we lose to UNC.

Look at it this way:

uga - Loss
Clemson - Loss
Pitt - Loss. Blewitt has been gone since 2016, and that hasn't helped us. Pitt is a team I think we'd beat if we weren't in a rebuild.
UVA - Loss. Great coach and they almost beat us last year. I have no confidence we win this game.
NCSU - Loss. NCSU's a good team that I'm pretty certain will beat us this year
Miami - Loss. We've lost to less talented Miami teams. Their overall defensive talent usually gives them a decided edge over us
Duke - Loss. Until we've proven that we can beat Duke consistently, I'm not chalking up a win here. Cutcliffe has built a good program there.
Temple - Win. I just can't see CGC losing to his old team, though a win here isn't the lock of seasons past
USF - Win. Last years USF team would beat us, but they lost their 5* QB transfer
Citadel - Win. If we lose this game, then we are in major trouble...
UNC - Win. This could easily be a loss if Mack turns it around in a hurry. I think we eke out a win here.

VT - Toss-up. This is the wildcard for me. While Fuente struggled a lot last year, they were hit pretty hard by the injury bug, similar to us in 2015. Their QB went down for the year in the OD game. They had a lot of off season transfers, but almost none were starters, and most were depth players looking to start elsewhere. They've had better recruiting classes than us, and have beaten us head to head in recruiting battles more than any other ACC team recently where we were going hard after a guy. We've had a nice run against them, but I'm not sold VT is going to be as bad as some people think. This could be win 5 or loss 8.

Now, I could see maybe picking up an extra win or two against Duke and/or Pitt, but I think the rest are legit losses.

As far as "our mediocre schedule" is concerned, it's ranked the 23rd toughest in NCAA FB next year.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

pretty much my take but NCST is not trending up. They also have QB questions and replacing two 1k WRs

We have the biggest QB questions in the ACC and no receivers with any significant yardage returning to a new offense that will focus more on passing. If NCSU has issues in those areas, then we certainly do.

 

[FlatsLander]

I'm not sure why all these predictions have us so low. On offense, we are moving from a highly specialized, uncommon scheme to one that is probably very similar to a lot of the systems our SAs saw in high school. On defense, this will be the 3rd year in a row with a new scheme, and there wasn't a ton of drop off in overall performance from Roof to Woody. I'll be surprised if we can't find 3 wins after Citadel and UNC.

 

[AlabamaBuzz]

You had me until the part in bold.

Me too, DCS.

Those that want to believe the improvement in defense is "scheme or strategy based" will continue to believe this. I believe on D, more than on the O side, it is all about the talent level - size and speed. I do believe bad coaching can "drag down" a poor D even more, but I believe our D-coordinators have been doing a pretty good job with the front 7 they had to work with.

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

I hear you but I have been way underwhelmed by our defensive coaches for a decade now. The Collins crew can’t be any worse than what we’ve had. As far as having the 23rd toughest schedule, what does that really mean? We all know 5 to 15 teams dominate the talent. After that it’s a crapshoot. Having the 23rd toughest schedule isn’t much different than having the 40th toughest. In other words, most college football teams are in the same category of mediocre. And if you guys really think we are going to lose against all those mediocre teams I really think you are under rating the players on GT’s team. We have talented players and we’ll finally have a QB who isn’t a ball hog. I think some of you are going to be surprised at what a team who distributes the ball can do.

 

[LibertyTurns]

I'd say Pitt, UVA, Duke, Miami, NCSU, and VT are losses as well. Wouldn't be surprised if we lose to UNC.

Look at it this way:

uga - Loss
Clemson - Loss
Pitt - Loss. Blewitt has been gone since 2016, and that hasn't helped us. Pitt is a team I think we'd beat if we weren't in a rebuild.
UVA - Loss. Great coach and they almost beat us last year. I have no confidence we win this game.
NCSU - Loss. NCSU's a good team that I'm pretty certain will beat us this year
Miami - Loss. We've lost to less talented Miami teams. Their overall defensive talent usually gives them a decided edge over us
Duke - Loss. Until we've proven that we can beat Duke consistently, I'm not chalking up a win here. Cutcliffe has built a good program there.
Temple - Win. I just can't see CGC losing to his old team, though a win here isn't the lock of seasons past
USF - Win. Last years USF team would beat us, but they lost their 5* QB transfer
Citadel - Win. If we lose this game, then we are in major trouble...
UNC - Win. This could easily be a loss if Mack turns it around in a hurry. I think we eke out a win here.

VT - Toss-up. This is the wildcard for me. While Fuente struggled a lot last year, they were hit pretty hard by the injury bug, similar to us in 2015. Their QB went down for the year in the OD game. They had a lot of off season transfers, but almost none were starters, and most were depth players looking to start elsewhere. They've had better recruiting classes than us, and have beaten us head to head in recruiting battles more than any other ACC team recently where we were going hard after a guy. We've had a nice run against them, but I'm not sold VT is going to be as bad as some people think. This could be win 5 or loss 8.

Now, I could see maybe picking up an extra win or two against Duke and/or Pitt, but I think the rest are legit losses.

As far as "our mediocre schedule" is concerned, it's ranked the 23rd toughest in NCAA FB next year.

Man, this is a pretty dismal prediction. Somebody needs to ask CGC if he thinks we’re going to crap the bed this year. I’m not reading it in his tweets, etc.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

I hear you but I have been way underwhelmed by our defensive coaches for a decade now. The Collins crew can’t be any worse than what we’ve had. As far as having the 23rd toughest schedule, what does that really mean? We all know 5 to 15 teams dominate the talent. After that it’s a crapshoot. Having the 23rd toughest schedule isn’t much different than having the 40th toughest. In other words, most college football teams are in the same category of mediocre. And if you guys really think we are going to lose against all those mediocre teams I really think you are under rating the players on GT’s team. We have talented players and we’ll finally have a QB who isn’t a ball hog. I think some of you are going to be surprised at what a team who distributes the ball can do.

We’ll score a bit but can we stop anybody else from scoring more is the question.

 

[Novajacket]

Man, this is a pretty dismal prediction. Somebody needs to ask CGC if he thinks we’re going to crap the bed this year. I’m not reading it in his tweets, etc.

Any coach that comes out and says their team is going to crap the bed should be fired immediately, even if they believe that. Almost every coach knows that you come out saying you plan to win every game. That doesn’t mean you expect to, but it does a team no good to be negative. CGC was asked about the predictions at the lunch and learn and he said they don’t know his team like he does, which is what I expect him to say. He has done a good job so far of being a leader and not putting down his players or team, and I don’t expect him to. He has a philosophy of being always positive and asks the same of his assistants and players, so that we can get the best out of everyone. That doesn’t mean it won’t be a challenging few years.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

Man, this is a pretty dismal prediction. Somebody needs to ask CGC if he thinks we’re going to crap the bed this year. I’m not reading it in his tweets, etc.

Like any coach is going to publicly say we very well could lose 7-8 games...

There's a reason almost every expert is picking us to win 3-4 games. I'd love to see us win 6 or more, and will be in my seats at BDS regardless, but I am not expecting much at all this year in terms of wins.

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

When wasn’t there a year we could have lost 7-8 games? We can go thru every season and look at every game and most of them are close games that came down to either a turnover or a player making a play in the 4th quarter. When teams are basically even it’s a crapshoot. I would never predict any team in the Coastal to only win 3-4 games. Why? Because most teams have two built in gimmes every year. Then you have the games against the top 15 that teams in the Coastal will simply lose due to talent. For us it’s Clemson and UGA. Then you have about 8-9 crapshoot games. The law of averages say each team will go about .500. That’s 6 wins right there. If our cupboard was bare I could see a prediction of 2-3 wins. But I like our offensive weapons better than what we had last year. Defense is a question mark but it always has been and we have rarely finished below .500. In 2018 the worst team in the Coastal finished 6-7. In 2017 us and Pitt finished with 5 wins. We lost 2 games by a point (Tennessee, Miami), lost by 4 to UVA and had a game cancelled. So we won 5 but could have won 7-8 with a few bounces. I’m looking forward to another chaotic Coastal race with the winner having 2-3 conference losses.

 

[GT99]

Any coach that comes out and says their team is going to crap the bed should be fired immediately, even if they believe that. Almost every coach knows that you come out saying you plan to win every game. That doesn’t mean you expect to, but it does a team no good to be negative. CGC was asked about the predictions at the lunch and learn and he said they don’t know his team like he does, which is what I expect him to say. He has done a good job so far of being a leader and not putting down his players or team, and I don’t expect him to. He has a philosophy of being always positive and asks the same of his assistants and players, so that we can get the best out of everyone. That doesn’t mean it won’t be a challenging few years.

Indeed. Word I got from a high school coach who met with our staff is to keep expectations tempered this season - they're being very positive externally, but they're not happy with what they have on offense.
Personally, I expect the defense to be a little better than the offense this season. Not that either is going to be good. But I think a lot of folks underestimate the impact of CPJ's X's and O's and overestimate the talent.

 

[CTJacket]

Why do you think we gave CGC a 7 year contract? The next two years might be rough while CGC gets his players recruited and his systems installed.

I always enjoy your posts, @Augusta_Jacket . Here's my hot take - we surprise this year. Why? Everyone will be looking past us, no matter what our record is at the time we play them. We'll probably surprise someone, maybe even the 'mighty' georgie (who has gotten way more than the benefit of the doubt the last two years). However, I think 2020 is going to be painful due to everything you've talked about. I think we make a bowl this year but either squeak in or miss next year, although that is so far into the future who really knows?

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

I always enjoy your posts, @Augusta_Jacket . Here's my hot take - we surprise this year. Why? Everyone will be looking past us, no matter what our record is at the time we play them. We'll probably surprise someone, maybe even the 'mighty' georgie (who has gotten way more than the benefit of the doubt the last two years). However, I think 2020 is going to be painful due to everything you've talked about. I think we make a bowl this year but either squeak in or miss next year, although that is so far into the future who really knows?

Thanks. I HOPE we make a bowl, and I certainly think it's within the realm of possibility. I just don't know that it's probable. If we win 6+, I do think it will be because a few teams overlooked us.

Here's the positive spin... For the first time in a long while, Clemson has no game film to go off of for our offense, so there's that....

 

[stech81]

Indeed. Word I got from a high school coach who met with our staff is to keep expectations tempered this season - they're being very positive externally, but they're not happy with what they have on offense.
Personally, I expect the defense to be a little better than the offense this season. Not that either is going to be good. But I think a lot of folks underestimate the impact of CPJ's X's and O's and overestimate the talent.

I don't think our offense will be as bad as some on here think. Not sure what they base it on , the spring game , playing in an offense they have not the last few years ? This offense looked 10 times better than the first spring game CPJ had his first year. If your thinking the offense won't be good because of the OL lack on depth I can understand . What does worry me is running a fast pace offense . If the defense is really going to be better you may not notice it with a fast pace offense that has a few 3 and out. With little or no depth on defense this may not be the time to run a fast pace offense. Something the coaches need to look at during fall practice and not during the season.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

I don't think our offense will be as bad as some on here think. Not sure what they base it on , the spring game , playing in an offense they have not the last few years ? This offense looked 10 times better than the first spring game CPJ had his first year. If your thinking the offense won't be good because of the OL lack on depth I can understand . What does worry me is running a fast pace offense . If the defense is really going to be better you may not notice it with a fast pace offense that has a few 3 and out. With little or no depth on defense this may not be the time to run a fast pace offense. Something the coaches need to look at during fall practice and not during the season.

Here's what worries me.

If a team with an established offense had to replace EVERY starter with back ups who had been in said system, then I don't think it unreasonable to expect very limited production from it. A poster on here referred to NCSU in that very same vein earlier. Replacing a QB in ANY offense is usually a big deal. Having no WRs with any real production returning is usually a pretty big deal.

Well, we don't have a returning QB, much less a QB recruited by ANY P5 team as QB on our roster (caveat for Yates), so that is strie 1. We have NO WRs with ANY significant production returning. Strike 2. Our OL was recruited for an entirely different O and is relearning on the fly. Another strike. Our most promising QBs are either a T-FR or LJ, who is coming back from injury. We have a lot of guys in new positions, and none of our returners have ever played in this O on the college level.

On the positive side, I do think our guys have talent, but even talented kids struggle when learning something new.

I just think too many of us are letting our gold tinted glasses make homers out of us. While it's great to be optimistic, and I am usually optimistic, I fear that we're going to have a LOT of fans very angry if the experts are correct and we only win a handful of games.

 

[stech81]

I just think too many of us are letting our gold tinted glasses make homers out of us. While it's great to be optimistic, and I am usually optimistic, I fear that we're going to have a LOT of fans very angry if the experts are correct and we only win a handful of games.

First I always wear gold color glasses that is what fans do. Will I get pissed if we lose , hell yes but I'll get over it just like I did in 2015, 1994, and 1981 and I was ready for the next game after each loss. Ok QB's may not hold an offer from any P5 schools but big deal they all run an offense very close to this new one. If our coach on offense is any good he can plan a game around what they can do. As for the WR's they will be fine I really think they will be better than avg. And OL they can't be an worse than the last few years ( I know famous last words) , at least this year they will be on their feet and not on the ground looking up to see who made the tackle.