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The Schedule According to Smooty

Discussion in 'RayGator's Swamp Gas' started by SmootyGator, Aug 8, 2024.

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  1. Aug 19, 2024 #81
    ThePlayer

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    Not to mention game-day coaching.

    The Sporting News college football coaches rankings for 2024
    (last year ranking in parenthesis)
    26. Gus Malzahn, UCF (29)
    50. Billy Napier, Florida (45)
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2024
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  2. Aug 19, 2024 #82
    Crusher

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    According to his analysis (other than Samford) we should be favored against only LSU, UTk, and Kentucky. That would jive with the Vegas over/under.
     
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  3. Aug 19, 2024 #83
    lizardbreath

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    We seem to be in the "pretty good to not bad range" according to most of those unit rankings - but obviously not yet world beaters. That in itself demonstrates some evidence of growth. FTR, pretty good to not bad is preferable to stinking to High Heaven - which has been the case at certain positions for quite a while now. If they're basing this exclusively on known quantities and assumptions based on player performance drawn from '23, I'm actually fairly pleased with that take. It would seem to indicate tangible progress in elevating the talent level across the board. Again, no one here, including myself, has any illusions about being all the way back in '24. But I do suspect that PS might be a little off on that DL ranking based on what I'm seeing and reading in these latest scrimmage reports and highlights. I believe we have talent, depth and team chemistry we haven't seen in several years - particularly on defense. And one factor that no preseason mag will ever be able to predict is a team's heart and desire to compete and win. We'll see what's what by the early evening of the 31st. GG! Beat scUM!

    PS: I predict the QB room rating may end up looking a bit myopic as well.
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2024
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  4. Aug 19, 2024 #84
    Crusher

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    Unfortunately, not too shabby still falls behind around 8 other SEC programs with around 6 appearing on our schedule year in and year out. Has our talent level improved, no doubt, but I think the jury is out on how much it has improved in relation to the rest of our opponents. Its still a very young team, though. If we can win (and pay) enough to keep them in the fold for a few more years, things should hopefully improve relative to other opponents.
     
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  5. Sep 25, 2024 #85
    SmootyGator

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    Checking in on this thread as we are now 1/3rd the way through the season.

    The "forgone conclusion" games look the same. No surprise there...

    The "must win games" we are 1-1. I said we needed to go 2-1 at a minimum so in order for that to hold we would have to beat Kentucky, which might be a stretch. Also since we lost to TAMU, we would need to pick up a win somewhere else, which also seems unlikely.

    The "big boy" games don't look promising at all for even a chance to win 1. Since we lost 1 of the "must win" games, we would need 2 wins here to get to 7-5. Not. Gonna. Happen.

    The "state games" is where the my forecast was way off. My post says that going 2-1 would have the makings of a decent to great season. Wrong, LMAO. Even if we somehow beat UCF and FSU, we're still probably only at 5-7 on the season. This is probably mostly due to the fact that FSU is very bad. So knowing what we know now, I would say going 2-1 in these games would "somewhat salvage a crappy season", as opposed being a "decent to great" season.

    The bad news is that it's really awful that I thought I was being a little bit conservative when I made the original post. Turns out I was overly optimistic. Sad.

    The good news is that FSU sucks, so we can all enjoy that together at least.
     
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  6. Sep 25, 2024 #86
    antny1

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    I was optimistic because a coach doesn't usually sell his teams improvement preseason unless he knows they are gonna back it up. Napier is just oblivious.

    I never bought the schedule excuse. The back end is still proving to be nasty but there isn't any excuse to lose at home in a must win opener or to a first year coach at aTm. Granted a loss may have been seen as "acceptable " to Miami but even those that felt that way acknowledge that we weren't even competitive which changed everything.
     
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  7. Sep 25, 2024 #87
    Wanne15

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    Five teams in the top seven is still crazy. A top ten team could legit go 7-5.
     
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  8. Sep 26, 2024 #88
    fox

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    It'll be interesting to see if us or fsu improves. I think we could, at least on offense, without injuries on the line. I haven't heard anything definitive on Wilson's return. I could see Baugh breaking out and Badger and Dike are stepping up.

    Where's the leadership and chemistry on defense that was crowed about?
     
  9. Sep 26, 2024 #89
    Bazza

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    We should be undefeated right now.

    Take from that what you will........
     
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  10. Sep 26, 2024 #90
    chemgator

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    No, they're speaking Latin ("Et tu, Brutus?"; or, in this case, "Et tu, Bevo?"). They're nerds.
     
  11. Sep 26, 2024 #91
    chemgator

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    The leadership and chemistry on defense are great. It's the ability that's lacking. Not a major problem, unless we want to win games.
     
  12. Nov 4, 2024 at 2:53 PM #92
    SmootyGator

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    Bumping this thread now that we are two-thirds the way through the season. Pretty interesting to see what our schedule strength is now compared to what we (I) thought it would be at the beginning of the season. Also, the last time I bumped this was after 4 games, which coincidentally was right before we started looking a lot different as a team.

    I had A&M as a "must win game" at the beginning of the season... Now, they would be considered a "big boy" team.

    Also, the in state games are A LOT different that I had imagined. UCF isn't as good as we thought.... FSU is HORRIBLE, and Miami is over achieving big time! At the beginning of the season, I thought that A&M and Miami were the 6th & 7th best teams we would play this year. Season isn't over yet, but that looks to be way off.

    That being said, the schedule appears to be just about the same overall in terms of difficulty, but my 7-5 prediction is all but shot now. In order for it to have happened, we would have had to avoid the coaching debacle at Tennessee... That game still sticks in my craw as we were actually playing good football and still managed to coach our way out of it. It really is the main thing that's keeping me from jumping back on the CBN bandwagon. Anyway, back to the topic...

    If I were to break up the schedule knowing what I know now, it would probably be three groups of four, not four groups of three. It might go something like:

    Must Win Games: Samford, UCF, Miss St., FSU - We better win all of these.
    Meat of the Schedule: Tennessee, Kentucky, Ole Miss, Miami - Need to win 3 of 4 of these, and that would be 7 wins.
    Icing on the cake games: Georgia, Texas, TAMU, LSU - A win here gives us 8 wins or more.

    Obviously things will change a little more by the end of the season and maybe TAMU or LSU get swapped out with Miami, Tenn. or Ole Miss....

    One thing that didn't change from my last post.... FSU still sucks!!! :devil:
     
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  13. Nov 4, 2024 at 4:01 PM #93
    Matthanuf06

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    The schedule definitely has easier wins.

    Samford sucks

    KY and MSU are the two worst teams in the SEC

    FSU is the worst team in the ACC

    UCF is bottom third in B12

    A below average SEC team goes 5-0 there.

    Our schedule then is barbelled. The other 7 are hard to very hard.

    We just have no South or North Carolina, Vandy, Mizzou, Auburn, Cincy, Baylor, VT, Duke, Illinois, Iowa, etc level games.
     
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