(04-24-2015 08:04 AM)WKUFan518 Wrote:  I expect Marshall will be 14 and 0 and crowned East Champion every season with their "XMEN' type athletes

For WKU anything less than 8 wins would be a huge disappointment

Realistically I think we can win 8 maybe 9 games which I would be happy with........

\

With everyone you have back I would think Western should win at least 10 games and win the league. I seriously don't think we can beat you in BG. That would be an upset in my opinion. To me Western in the clear favorite. jmo.

I'd be happy with 10-12 wins and winning the East.

Anything with 9 or less wins AND not winning the East would be a disappointment. If we only win 8-9 games, but manage to win the East, I would be ok with this.

Anything less than any of this would be a major disappointment to me.

(04-24-2015 08:32 AM)ATTALLABLAZE Wrote:  I expect UAB to be recruiting a bunch of transfers.

Yep, your 2016 team should be almost all transfers from JC's and grad transfers from other 4 year schools.

Boderline Ridiculous Best Case: 13-1 with no CUSA losses and champ/bowl win

Expectation: 9-3 regular season (7-1 CUSA) with division win. Shot at the 'ship. Hosting vs. Marshall of course

Acceptable, but Disheartening: 7-5, losing division to Ruston Trombones but still bowl bound.

Realistic Worst Case: 6-6, Ls to Texas, Baylor, WKU, LA Tek, FAU (owl on owl action) +1 CUSA dark horse (probably UTEP). No bowl.

Bizzaro World Acceptable Case: 2-10, but the 2 W's are Texas and Baylor. If we beat those two teams, I would run naked down the main streets of Austin and Waco, respectively.

(04-24-2015 09:08 AM)TheDirtyV Wrote:  Boderline Ridiculous Best Case: 13-1 with no CUSA losses and champ/bowl win

Expectation: 9-3 regular season (7-1 CUSA) with division win. Shot at the 'ship. Hosting vs. Marshall of course

Acceptable, but Disheartening: 7-5, losing division to Ruston Trombones but still bowl bound.

Realistic Worst Case: 6-6, Ls to Texas, Baylor, WKU, LA Tek, FAU (owl on owl action) +1 CUSA dark horse (probably UTEP). No bowl.

Bizzaro World Acceptable Case: 2-10, but the 2 W's are Texas and Baylor. If we beat those two teams, I would run naked down the main streets of Austin and Waco, respectively.

No one in Austin would notice but I don't know how that would be received in Waco.

(04-24-2015 09:01 AM)FlyHawk98 Wrote:  I'd be happy with 10-12 wins and winning the East.

Anything with 9 or less wins AND not winning the East would be a disappointment. If we only win 8-9 games, but manage to win the East, I would be ok with this.

Anything less than any of this would be a major disappointment to me.

Even with the huge question mark of a new QB? I know we are really deep across the board, but it's still going to be a whole new playcaller. We've been so lucky with Cato the last few years that I feel some Marshall fans are underestimating the transition to a new QB, even though I've heard a lot of good things about Birdsong.

(04-24-2015 08:54 AM)SVHerd Wrote:  

(04-24-2015 08:04 AM)WKUFan518 Wrote:  I expect Marshall will be 14 and 0 and crowned East Champion every season with their "XMEN' type athletes

For WKU anything less than 8 wins would be a huge disappointment

Realistically I think we can win 8 maybe 9 games which I would be happy with........

\

With everyone you have back I would think Western should win at least 10 games and win the league. I seriously don't think we can beat you in BG. That would be an upset in my opinion. To me Western in the clear favorite. jmo.

Nah man listen to the MTSU fans, we don't have a chance...Everyone knows our offense now(none of our offensive players could possibly get better and our Head Coach will not learn from his mistakes of being first time HC), none of our players got better, and our defense will be worse than last season (more depth means nothing)....After listening to MTSU fans I also wonder how we will possibly win 5 games this season :)

(04-23-2015 10:24 PM)Saint Greg Wrote:  Anything less than last year would be a disappointment for me. Division title. Bowl win. Hopefully conference title.

This

I can't believe the Marshall fans are predicting to lose a game. The only realistic tough games of the year is WKU and maybe FAU and MT. MU has the easiest schedule in the country based on wins and loses from last year.

I still see MU winning the east and Tech or Rice in the west. I hope both teams are ranked in the CUSA Championship game.

(04-24-2015 08:28 AM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  As I have said before I believe Western is overhyped and will not be able to replicate the offensive success of last season due to teams knowing how to gameplan around Doughty now and the defense is still terrible.

Marshall has provided a small sample size of one season that they can win on the road. [u]Until we see more evidence that they can win consistently away from home[/u]

Good point about WKU... I agree.


Regarding us on the road...here are some numbers you might find interesting:

MU WKU MTSU
2011 1-3 4-0 1-3
2012 2-2 3-1 3-1
2013 3-1 3-1 3-1
2014 4-0 1-3 1-3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
.625 .687 .500

Marshall over the past four seasons is trending up while WKU is trending down, and MTSU is the least consistent of all. As for home records:

MU WKU MTSU
2011 4-0 3-1 0-4
2012 2-2 1-3 3-1
2013 4-0 1-2 3-1
2014 3-1 3-1 4-0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.813 .533 .625


So composite winning percentage over the past four seasons:

MU WKU MTSU
.719 .610 .562

And also keep in mind two of those seasons WKU and MTSU were in the SUN BELT... So, while I can appreciate your argument, I respectfully disagree with it.

(04-24-2015 09:23 AM)RedParallax Wrote:  

(04-24-2015 09:01 AM)FlyHawk98 Wrote:  I'd be happy with 10-12 wins and winning the East.

Anything with 9 or less wins AND not winning the East would be a disappointment. If we only win 8-9 games, but manage to win the East, I would be ok with this.

Anything less than any of this would be a major disappointment to me.

Even with the huge question mark of a new QB? I know we are really deep across the board, but it's still going to be a whole new playcaller. We've been so lucky with Cato the last few years that I feel some Marshall fans are underestimating the transition to a new QB, even though I've heard a lot of good things about Birdsong.

I just think our running game will take a lot of pressure off of our QB. I also think that overall, our defense will be better this year.

(04-24-2015 08:54 AM)SVHerd Wrote:  

(04-24-2015 08:04 AM)WKUFan518 Wrote:  I expect Marshall will be 14 and 0 and crowned East Champion every season with their "XMEN' type athletes

For WKU anything less than 8 wins would be a huge disappointment

Realistically I think we can win 8 maybe 9 games which I would be happy with........

\

With everyone you have back I would think Western should win at least 10 games and win the league. I seriously don't think we can beat you in BG. That would be an upset in my opinion. To me Western in the clear favorite. jmo.

You are correct....

a 10% increase on defense should give Western 10 wins and a 15% increase on defense 11 wins. It would have last year and I'm just talking about getting off the field on 3rd and 4th down. I think the 2 former UAB starters (one now and the LB in Aug) should add at least 1 extra 3rd down stop in 10 tries....

not even counting the extra year our defense had to grow and the added in JUCO's.

As good as the offense was last year....it could have been better. Our 1st year coach took the air out of the ball and the big MOE!!! in 2 of our losses. He also did it in 2 of our wins. So I think the offense could be even better.

We do have 7 road games and 2 games vs SEC and 1 vs Big10 but if you want to be a bigboy...you beat those bottom P5 schools when you are the better team. I don't see how anyone can't see Western should be the better team vs Vandy and IU.

Some of our fans still have the OH NO...that can't happen, again, affecting them. So they are caution in their picks. I bet if you could read their minds...not one of them are thinking of losing 4 freaking games.

Anything less than 10 wins will be a disappointment to me. In all honestly when you basically have your whole team coming back and you were 3 yards away from 10 wins last year...

Western is a young program as far as FBS goes and the awful start into FBS shook our fans. But that start is why Western is only 1 of 8 other G5 schools to win 7 or more games over the last 4 seasons. Western redshirted two whole classes and we paid for it those first couple years by losing close games in the 4th qt...

last second INT goes for a pick 6
muts runs a fumble back 102 yards as Western is going in for a score to put the game away. And 10 other late plays that cost us games.

Western is on our 4th coach in the last 6 years and in that we won, 7, 7, 8, 8 games. We basically have the whole offense back and 9 of 11 on defense and two UAB starters...well one but the other will be here in Aug.

The schedule, while only having 5 home games should be easier than last year...

Marshall
MUTS
Tech

all road games last year...home games this season

LSU should be a loss...should be

Is Vandy better than Navy..a team we beat @Navy last year. I don't think so...Western should have 10,000 fans at this game.

Is IU better than Ill...a game we were driving for a go ahead score in the 4th qt that ended in a pick 6.

Is Miami Oh better than BG.. BG was preseason pick to win the MAC...Western knocked out their QB.

LSU should be the only game Western goes into where a loss is expected

So for the 4th year in a row Western should only have 1 loss OOC

I know the Texas trips will not be easy but when you are expected to be the man...it's time to put the bigboy pants on and be that man.

9 wins will be a improvement but still a disappointment for me
8 wins will be a major let down
7 wins a failure
6 wins...I might not come back from our FIU trip :)

I could see us going anywhere from 14-0 to 9-3... The three games that worry me are WKU, MTSU, and FAU (all difficult road games and all of which we can lose)... It all is going to depend on the maturity of the new QB and the mindset of the leaders of the team. Doc has a great philosophy in place and everyone has bought in... I

(04-24-2015 09:36 AM)Cscollis Wrote:  I can't believe the Marshall fans are predicting to lose a game. The only realistic tough games of the year is WKU and maybe FAU and MT. MU has the easiest schedule in the country based on wins and loses from last year.

I still see MU winning the east and Tech or Rice in the west. I hope both teams are ranked in the CUSA Championship game.

As I said all last season when i was viewed as a homer troll, i give my opinion on any situation, straight up and objective as I can be, whether it ruffles feathers or not.

No chance we go undefeated this season, 2 losses are very probable. Right now, I'd say that would be WKU and one along the way in conference. All i hope is WKU slips and loses 3 games or WKU will be the east champs.

The only reason i think we lose 2 is new QB play, it would be an 8-4 or 7-5 prediction, but i saw goo QB play in the spring, and Butler is way better and stronger than he has been, and we return DJ. If its not one of the bet backfields in college football, then I'd like to know what would qualify. So that will overcome a bit of transition at QB.

I would say a 6-6 year is probable for 2015. A run at the title in 2016 a real possibility.

I said at the end of the season last year that USM will go bowling. And I still feel that way.

How about Western at least try to have a winning conference record this year. Something they didn't do last year. We beat them last year with their "great" QB just like several other CUSA teams . We will beat them again this year. I just don't see why they are getting so much hype. They barely beat Marshall something UAB almost did the week before that game. Their defense is horrendous!!! They almost loss bowl game because of it to a weak MAC team. I see Western finishing behind MT, Marshall, and FAU in the east.

With the road schedule of Alabama, Illinois, WKU, LaTech, FAU and UTSA, 3-3 might look pretty good at the end of the year.

One thing that is nice is the bye week being prior to the Marshall game, MT has lost only 1 conference home game, since joining C-USA(ECU) and have not lost at WKU, since the series was renewed.

Marshall and WKU should be the favorites to win the east, but WKU's bye week isn't until after week 10 and Marshall's is after week 11, that is going to be difficult to keep everyone healthy, if either or both are able to win 9+ games, they will have earned it.

I have no expectations whatsoever. I will see whatever I see whenever I see it, and that will be that.

As a rule, I don't get caught up in the Ws & Ls as much as I just pay attention to how well the team is playing. I'm happier with them playing a good game and losing by a point than looking like poo-poo and sneaking by. However, with the schedule USM has, the record should be a pretty accurate reflection of competence.

If we win fewer than 5 this year, I'll be convinced we hired the wrong guy to right the ship, and will start looking forward to 2017.

If we win 6 or more, I'll be ecstatic.

If we win 5 on the money, I'll continue to watch the wheels spin for another year.

(04-24-2015 10:33 AM)MT FAN Wrote:  How about Western at least try to have a winning conference record this year. Something they didn't do last year. We beat them last year with their "great" QB just like several other CUSA teams . We will beat them again this year. I just don't see why they are getting so much hype. They barely beat Marshall something UAB almost did the week before that game. Their defense is horrendous!!! They almost loss bowl game because of it to a weak MAC team. I see Western finishing behind MT, Marshall, and FAU in the east.

WKU was a different team late in the season. They were awful for the first 7 games or so then they came together. The type of team late that would makr a run in the ncaa tourney if this was basketball.

We also were very banged up later in the year and the injuries made us noticeably weaker. They all got healthy for the bowl game and thats why you saw a good NIU team get dismantled.

Anyway, i am not sure why MT fans have a reason to believe you'll make a run this season? Admittedly I am not an avid MT fan so i do not know what pieces you have added or changed etc, its just that i have seen predictions youll be champions each year, and i haven't seen a team that is championship caliber. Your first year was way better than last seasons team. A rundown of your team would be appreciated.