Two early season indicators of success ?

MikeJackets1967

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But Pitt plays in a tougher league. I thought you said USF is rebuilding. Is Pitt really going to be that bad?
I don't think they will improve any in 2018 and their offense will be as rotten as it was in 2017. I think Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi will be given 2019 to get better or he will be canned in December 2019. A rebuilding USF team can go 7-5 in the AAC. I think USF loses to GT,Illinois,Houston,Temple and UCF.
 

Skeptic

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If GT were to shock the World and beat Clemson making their record 4-0 i think they would be rated in the #10-#12 range;):D:cool:
Might break into top 25, but not close to top 10. The reason being GT has a history of surprising Clemson so that would not be a big surprise, so to speak. And Tech's see-saw seasonal record of recent years is nothing to build a top 10 reputation on. We would need more quality wins to get that kind of recognition. (I think it was after the Orange Bowl vs. Miss. State we finally cracked that number.)
 

Skeptic

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Man Dabo sure is surly. So confrontational with the media. Doesn’t make Clemson look good at all. I mean how is he supposed to recruit while presenting that dour display to the media? :rolleyes:

All sarcasm aside I can’t help but like Dabo. And Clemson too for that matter. Doesn’t make me want to beat them any less but I’ll take them all day every day over duh U or any of the teams in N. Carolina.
I agree. And Swinney can one-line you to death. Last year when the players at the ACC kickoff event were asked to vote on the coach they would most like to play for, excluding their own, it was Swinney in a landslide so to speak. His reaction was that, "Everybody wants to play for me until they play for me." And when Fedora was making silly about sissifying football, Swinney noted that when he first started coaching at Alabama, "they would have hauled us off to jail" for practice methods. That was of course under Gene Stallings, who played for the Bear at Texas A&M. Might have been one of the Junction Boys, I don't know.
 

GTJackets

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Might break into top 25, but not close to top 10. The reason being GT has a history of surprising Clemson so that would not be a big surprise, so to speak. And Tech's see-saw seasonal record of recent years is nothing to build a top 10 reputation on. We would need more quality wins to get that kind of recognition. (I think it was after the Orange Bowl vs. Miss. State we finally cracked that number.)

Not disputing this, but you just hit on the biggest issue I have with the entire rankings system. Too many voters use this same logic that takes into account past history when deciding where teams should be ranked. GT upset Clemson a couple times back in the early 2000's therefore this shouldn't surprise us. And clearly GT can't be that good this year because have you seen their record the last couple of odd-numbered years? Clemson must have just clemson'd again. Clemson (3-1) ranking = 8, GT (4-0) ranking = 23.
 

MikeJackets1967

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I agree. And Swinney can one-line you to death. Last year when the players at the ACC kickoff event were asked to vote on the coach they would most like to play for, excluding their own, it was Swinney in a landslide so to speak. His reaction was that, "Everybody wants to play for me until they play for me." And when Fedora was making silly about sissifying football, Swinney noted that when he first started coaching at Alabama, "they would have hauled us off to jail" for practice methods. That was of course under Gene Stallings, who played for the Bear at Texas A&M. Might have been one of the Junction Boys, I don't know.
Yeah Gene Stallings was one of the Junction Boys and so was all time great LB Jack Pardee.
 

Oakland

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Two early season indicators of success?
1. Play of the offensive line. That is the bones of any successful team.
2. Coach Woody's impact. While I am trilled by the hire of Coach Woody, I'm scared. Even without seeing them in person, our true freshmen may be better than last year's linebacker unit. OK, that might be an overstatement, but it looked like in some games last season, we got mauled. Additional, it's going to be tough to mask the loss of the experience from last years defensive backfield.
 

AE 87

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I agree that OL play will be crucial for the season, but I typically can't tell how well our OL is playing as I watch the games unless they are completely getting destroyed.

So, I'm just going to be looking for several 3's and out on D and ball-control (not fumbling) on O.
 

augustabuzz

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I hope you guys are right about the first 3 games, but USF and Pitt on the road are not going to be easy. I actually saw some early odds (don’t mean much) that had USF favored by 2 and Pitt by 4. I don’t think it will happen but the odds are significantly higher we will be 1-3 after 4 games than 4-0.
A lot of the love for Pitt has come about because of the late season win against a depleted Miami team. They have 4 starters returning on O and will be coming off a physical game against Penn State. USF also lost a lot on one side of the ball. I can't recall which side.
 

Skeptic

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Not disputing this, but you just hit on the biggest issue I have with the entire rankings system. Too many voters use this same logic that takes into account past history when deciding where teams should be ranked. GT upset Clemson a couple times back in the early 2000's therefore this shouldn't surprise us. And clearly GT can't be that good this year because have you seen their record the last couple of odd-numbered years? Clemson must have just clemson'd again. Clemson (3-1) ranking = 8, GT (4-0) ranking = 23.
No argument. What is that contractual catch-all about past performance being no guarantee of ... Like others on the board I want to win it all, but given the alternatives -- FSU, Miami, VT, UNC -- I'll go with Clemson otherwise. There's just something about the others.
 

Skeptic

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USF's entire offense and defense graduated
We'll learn something about Frost this season. He was at UCF just two years so his 19 wins were with somebody else's players, and I'm not diminishing what he did with them. But "his" players were just sophomores his last year, and if both sides graduated, well. Frost will not have been the first coach to slide in and out before the posse arrived to count heads, and all the new coach can hope for is that Frost's two recruiting classes live up to his UCF record. He came in with the usual it-won't-be-my-fault lines by telling everyone who would listen everything that was wrong with Nebraska. Which according to him is everything, and it has to be "fixed". I do love coaches. They pay agents to find them jobs and yowl about how tough they have it in he job the agent got them.
 
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