Realistic expectations for 2016?

[bke1984]

I think we'll be going into Thanksgiving weekend at 8-3, and since it's in Athens, who knows...maybe we pull out a win and get to 9 in the regular season.

Knowing how things are in the Coastal, that could actually get us into the ACCCG...

Here's my logic:

vs. BC (Ireland) - W
vs. Mercer - W
vs. Vandy - W
vs. Clemson - L (as much as I'd love to win, they're just really, really good right now)
vs. Miami - W
@ Pitt - W
vs. Georgia Southern - W
vs. Duke - W (I want to embarrass these guys this year)
@ UNC - L
@ VT - L
vs. Virginia - W
@ Georgia - ???

Looking at it now though, this is a pretty manageable schedule. We only play four true road games this year, and only two of those are at hostile environments. Don't be surprised if we bounce back in a big way.

There are two critical stretches... Clemson/Miami/Pitt and Duke/UNC/VT. We can't go 0-3 in either of those stretches and have a successful season, and we honestly need to go 2-1 in at least one of them.

After a 3-9 season it's easy to say 7-5 would be acceptable, but looking at the schedule I think that'd be pretty disappointing. If we lose 5 then we really don't get any quality wins at all. Wouldn't be much different than last year...just a different end result from an easier schedule.

So realistic expectations...8 or more

 

[Northeast Stinger]

vs. BC (Ireland) - W
vs. Mercer - W
vs. Vandy - W
vs. Clemson - L (as much as I'd love to win, they're just really, really good right now)
vs. Miami - W
@ Pitt - W
vs. Georgia Southern - W
vs. Duke - W (I want to embarrass these guys this year)
@ UNC - L
@ VT - L
vs. Virginia - W
@ Georgia - ???

When I look at a schedule before the start of a season I try to first identify sure wins and sure losses on the schedule. There is no such thing of course but it is the only rational way I know how to start, even though wins and losses sometimes defy rational thinking. One caveat is that I often leave Georgia off my calculation, not for rational reasons, but because of COFH.

With that said, the difficulty with next year's schedule is that there is only one "sure" win on the schedule and one "sure" loss, Mercer and Clemson, respectively.

That is why I see the BC game as critical. If virtually all the other games are toss ups then it really will depend on how fast Tech starts out of the gate. Winning and losing can both establish their own momentum, if you know what I mean.

Beyond that, games that look problematic to me are Miami, Duke and Virginia, each for different reasons. If we are playing well by the time we get to each of those games I will feel much better. If we are struggling like last year I see each of these as a loss.

 

[65Jacket]

The OL has got to perform if we have a successful season.

 

[bke1984]

When I look at a schedule before the start of a season I try to first identify sure wins and sure losses on the schedule. There is no such thing of course but it is the only rational way I know how to start, even though wins and losses sometimes defy rational thinking. One caveat is that I often leave Georgia off my calculation, not for rational reasons, but because of COFH.

With that said, the difficulty with next year's schedule is that there is only one "sure" win on the schedule and one "sure" loss, Mercer and Clemson, respectively.

That is why I see the BC game as critical. If virtually all the other games are toss ups then it really will depend on how fast Tech starts out of the gate. Winning and losing can both establish their own momentum, if you know what I mean.

Beyond that, games that look problematic to me are Miami, Duke and Virginia, each for different reasons. If we are playing well by the time we get to each of those games I will feel much better. If we are struggling like last year I see each of these as a loss.

I saw the sure wins as BC, Mercer, Vandy, and Georgia Southern. BC is probably more of a toss-up than I'm giving it credit for though...their defense is really good (even though their coordinator is gone) and our offense hasn't looked good since the Orange Bowl. Plus they suffered from the injury bug last year a lot like we did. However, we should not lose any of the other three games. Vandy is really bad. I know Southern is good and they almost beat us two years ago, and can't look past them and Georgia had to go to OT to beat them, and...yeah ok...they got steam rolled by Georgia State last year in Statesboro. If we lose to them then we are going to have much bigger problems.

 

[grandpa jacket]

If we lose to Ga Southern, CPJ is history

 

[Milwaukee]

I think we'll be going into Thanksgiving weekend at 8-3, and since it's in Athens, who knows...maybe we pull out a win and get to 9 in the regular season.

Knowing how things are in the Coastal, that could actually get us into the ACCCG...

Here's my logic:

vs. BC (Ireland) - W
vs. Mercer - W
vs. Vandy - W
vs. Clemson - L (as much as I'd love to win, they're just really, really good right now)
vs. Miami - W
@ Pitt - W
vs. Georgia Southern - W
vs. Duke - W (I want to embarrass these guys this year)
@ UNC - L
@ VT - L
vs. Virginia - W
@ Georgia - ???

Looking at it now though, this is a pretty manageable schedule. We only play four true road games this year, and only two of those are at hostile environments. Don't be surprised if we bounce back in a big way.

There are two critical stretches... Clemson/Miami/Pitt and Duke/UNC/VT. We can't go 0-3 in either of those stretches and have a successful season, and we honestly need to go 2-1 in at least one of them.

After a 3-9 season it's easy to say 7-5 would be acceptable, but looking at the schedule I think that'd be pretty disappointing. If we lose 5 then we really don't get any quality wins at all. Wouldn't be much different than last year...just a different end result from an easier schedule.

So realistic expectations...8 or more

Here's a gentleman who has his mind right.

 

[RyanS12]

I think we'll be going into Thanksgiving weekend at 8-3, and since it's in Athens, who knows...maybe we pull out a win and get to 9 in the regular season.

Knowing how things are in the Coastal, that could actually get us into the ACCCG...

Here's my logic:

vs. BC (Ireland) - W
vs. Mercer - W
vs. Vandy - W
vs. Clemson - L (as much as I'd love to win, they're just really, really good right now)
vs. Miami - W
@ Pitt - W
vs. Georgia Southern - W
vs. Duke - W (I want to embarrass these guys this year)
@ UNC - L
@ VT - L
vs. Virginia - W
@ Georgia - ???

Looking at it now though, this is a pretty manageable schedule. We only play four true road games this year, and only two of those are at hostile environments. Don't be surprised if we bounce back in a big way.

There are two critical stretches... Clemson/Miami/Pitt and Duke/UNC/VT. We can't go 0-3 in either of those stretches and have a successful season, and we honestly need to go 2-1 in at least one of them.

After a 3-9 season it's easy to say 7-5 would be acceptable, but looking at the schedule I think that'd be pretty disappointing. If we lose 5 then we really don't get any quality wins at all. Wouldn't be much different than last year...just a different end result from an easier schedule.

So realistic expectations...8 or more

This looks exactly like my guess. I flipped Clemson with Pitt tho.

 

[AE 87]

Okay, it's hard to pour the koolaid after last season and, in some sense, after the T-Day game. However, it should be noted that the 2016 bama spring game ended at 7-3, so maybe drawing conclusions from the final score of the spring game is not that great an idea. Let's also put some perspective on last season with my favorite stat, ppd v. pwr 5. We ended 2015 with an offensive ppd vs pwr5 of 1.73. By comparison, that stat since 2008 was 1.99, 3.11, 2.05, 2.68, 2.95, 2.55, 3.52. In other words, we averaged over a TD/game worse in 2015 than 2014 and about a FG/game worse than our previous worse year. On the bright side, that 2015 off ppd was still the same as the average for VPI's offense over the last five years.

I don't think that it's realistic that we repeat that poor performance on offense. I predict that we'll be back to a more normal number, say 2.8 ppd v pwr5.

On D, we lost a lot of starters off an average defense. However, I think that we've got some guys who are ready to play. I'm really excited about our LB crew and am pretty optimistic about our DL and secondary. Still on top of that, I am most excited that we heard the coaches talking about needing to do a better job disguising our D etc. It may be just coach speak, but I've often felt that opposition QBs knew what we were going to do on D better than some of our players. Our D has been pretty consistently below average.

One thing that Spring game showed us was that our D seemed to play their assignments better and tackle better. An average D allows about 2.2 ppd vs pwr5. While our D has allowed over 2.4 for the last couple of years, I predict that we'll see marked improvement, say 2.15.

The resulting differential from my prediction is .65 which is typically good enough for top 20, top 15, which typically means 9-10 wins.

Where those wins are coming from is harder to say. I think Clemson and UNC will fall back some from last year based on the guys they lost. I think Brad Kaaya is going to have a great year for d'oh U, but I'm not sure that their D will give him enough support. I think UVA will be a tough-out this year in the coastal now that they have coaching to match their talent, and I won't be surprised if vpisu has chemistry problems as they try and merge old and new staffs.

I think we win BC, Mercer, Vandy, Duke, GS (5).
I think we win 2 of CU, Miami, Pitt and 2 of UNC, VPI, UVA (+4, 9)
Then the georgie game determines whether we end up with 9 or 10.

That being said, if we are undefeated after d'oh U, we win them all baby! If we get swept by CU, d'ohU and Pitt, ugly.

 

[hwdgeplague]

I think the question is what do we need to do to get back to the Orange Bowl.

To do that I believe that we would need to once again play over our heads a bit...and gain some special team chemistry a la 2014.

Do we possess a set of players that would potentially allow us to go say 10 and 2? I think that there is at QB, at BB, and maybe with the AB and WR. The line will be better against a weaker schedule with more perimeter help in blocking and with fewer turnovers.

I am actually more excited about the defense. I think we have the raw material for a top 25 defense. With AJ Gray anchoring the secondary and the new kid from the west coast...along with Step Durham and Campbell we have some playmakers. One could argue this is our most complete D in the CPJ decade

While I admit to being an eternal optimist, there seems to be plenty of reasons why both our O and D will be in the top 25. If that is the case then 8 and 4 to 11 and 1 will be our win-loss range.

 

[hwdgeplague]

In other words, what AE 87 said

 

[Jerry the Jacket]

15 and 0 baby!

Go Jackets!

 

[dressedcheeseside]

Getting back to the Orange Bowl all begins and ends with the dive. We have to be good enough on the OL to guarantee three to five yards a pop against their front four. We must make them send extra guys to beat the dive. Then we have to be able to exploit the holes that are created by that move. Rocket tosses are money against blitzing linebackers shooting gaps.

The inside game sets up the outside game which forces Corners to Blitz and safeties to roll over. Then we can short pass them to death on the outside like we did in the Orange Bowl the last time.

Secondly, we need wide receivers good enough to catch contested balls one-on-one against corners. This will force double coverage by the safeties setting up the seam routes for the Abacks and all of the outside run Lanes.

 

[tech_wreck47]

Where are these animals on our DL that you all are referencing?

I said DEEP, at no time did I say these guys were animals. Roof was running a 4-3 in the spring to sort out the LB group because we have so many guys there competing. On the D line we have plenty of depth and size compared to other years. Read what I said without throwing extra stuff stuff in there, depth does not = animal.

 

[UgaBlows]

I'll bet the fans have a more fragile psyche than the team does.

I hope so!