(09-04-2013 11:06 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote: But taking the games one at a time, we should be favored in most, if not all, and even if not favored the lines will be close. I cannot think of a single game that I would expect to lose going into it, as I did the Aggie game. I cannot think of a single game that I would not be disappointed and let down to lose.
I like our team and our chances the rest of the year.
That said, and for perspective, imagine you were any of Rice's opponents for last year's second half, looking solely at our record at the end of the first half of the year. (heck, I'd say imagine you were a regular on this board for that matter . . . . )
The point is, everyone on our schedule the second half of last year, and probably Air Force as well, was would've been counting their game against us as a W, with as much confidence in evidence as in your assessment of our chances this year.
I believe we could win out, certainly, and have high hopes for another 10 win season.
But we're one game in. We don't know:
1. How good A&M really is (seriously) yet.
2. Which opponents on are schedule have been seriously undervalued by the pundits, polls and rating services because of player improvement or additions to their roster that aren't given the significance they should be, because the players added only joined a 'bad' team. (e.g., what impact can some guy named Casey have at a school like Rice)
3. Which of our late season opponents goes on a tear like we did last year.
4. How many injuries we'll have to deal with and at what positions.
I think wrysal and Jonathon have made some good points. That said, I believe we are all being reasonable in saying we are very capable of winning 10 this year, and that it is conceivable that we could run the table from here out.
But capability and conceivability aside, I think the expectation that we 'ought' to win out is unreasonable, or that winning out is the only 'acceptable' outcome fails to consider that circumstances are not static, and that the other team has a fairly significant say in every game we play.
I'm still disappointed every time we lose. But I'm not necessarily going to write off any loss from here out as a total failure for the team.
One other comment. I understand we need to play as close to 'error free' football as possible, or not make 'big mistakes', etc. But I don't know that an error free game, while a necessary GOAL, is likely to be a reasonable outcome. A&M made mistakes against us last week. Pretty much every team that won last week, made some errors or big mistakes along the way. I may just read to much into some of the posts and the expectations that seem to go with them.
Oh, and this is just a general thought. For OO's benefit, almost none of this post was provoked by anything he posted, or should be taken as a disagreement with anything he posted. It just happened to be the place I ended up posting today.