At ULL, Napier was 7-7 in year 1 and 11-3 in year 2. I think there’s a good chance this team overachieves.
It has to go that way or no coach in his right mind would take the job. The future is most definitely uncertain but bitching and whining only makes success less likely.
I was one of the biggest cheerleaders to hire Napier. Im just following the data. It doesn’t matter who the coach is if you start with 2 losing seasons with a weak O then you are going to face questions. If we lose 3-4 games in 2023 with a vastly improved O then Napier is sitting pretty in 2024.
Well the offense was good last year but that was driven by elite QB running. The problem is truly the passing game. I expect a drop in total offensive production since the talent on O is significantly lower (OL and QB are huge downgrades) EPA, QBR, SP+ It’s just one game though so I’m not having season long conclusions yet. Im just pushing back on people who think the O and passing game are better. So far it’s not. Not even close. To be clear I pin a good chunk of this on poor passing schematics rather than the players.
That’s a little more balanced. It’s one game. This offense may not be as explosive, but can be a lot more consistent…and therefore, lead to more wins IMO.
The D going from beyond awful to good would produce more additional wins than if the O went from good to great. We were that bad on D.
USF was arguably worse last year, and AR's stats weren't ignored in the other gentleman's comparison.
Final SP+ rankings for all 131 FBS teams -- plus the past 15 national champs SP+ was kind to our D, 69th. O was top 25. Other metrics show the same trend (solid to good O, bad to awful D)
USF was better than McNeese. Not even close. AR was good last year, not great. QBs in that tier have ups and downs. If it was only ups they’d be great But you do realize Mertz in THREE years as a starter has never come close to ARs 2022? So if you thought AR was rough… I do realize people visually see QBs different and focus on different stats. Hence why aggregate total production numbers are important. Mertz doesn’t run and dinks and dunks. He will have a higher completion rate. AR runs a lot and was near the top of air yards…not great for completion percentage. But that’s why stats that put it all together are important But please stop comparing Mertz to AR. It’s not fair for Mertz at all. Totally different players and totally different universes in terms of talent. Mertz is doing the best given who he is.
The offense was okay last year but they weren’t good. They had potential to be good but only achieved it in 2-3 games. Last year the offense was only as good as the quarterback. I hate comparing AR to Mertz, they are nothing alike but they both have strengths that the other lacks. Mertz has the ability to lead this offense, the offensive line and TEs need to step up their game.
All the data says we had a top 25 offense. Maybe it didn’t look like it or maybe it’s not what you were used to. But it was top 25
Comparing this year to last year now is dumb. Feel free to get back to us after the season is complete and give us billions of data.
What does a top 25 offense means when you don’t start playing until your 3 scores down and are afraid to run because you might hurt your draft status?
What? I was responding to someone saying the 2022 offense was not good. That is false. They were top 25. We obviously do not know if 2023 will be top 25, bottom 25, or inbetween
They account for the game situation (score, time, quality of opponent, etc). Plus the funny thing is you described 2023 Utah
