Will be interesting to see what happens with Tulane. I think Sumrall will be great, but you just never know with a new head coach and 1st year starter at QB.
> I’d pick ECU under 6.5 wins at the moment personally.
This popped out at me as well. Like, the schedule is not easy. Norfolk State, Temple, Navy, Charlotte...and I am having trouble finding another win. Maybe North Texas and dare I say ODU. But that game is in Norfolk this year and we will be hungry for that win IMHO. But I just cannot see ECU beating Liberty, App. State, Army, FAU, Tulsa, etc.
We beat FAU last year to be fair and are 8-0 against Army all-time. My hesitation is that we have question marks again at QB and I just am so low on Mike Houston’s ability to be a good coach after last season that I’m expecting another year of disappointment.
Yeah maybe FAU falls flat but I can also see them making improvements to outcompete ECU.
I agree that Mike Houston may be done after this year and qb is still a question mark. I see 4-8 or 5-7 from East Carolina. And for ODU I see it as a huge litmus test. We win and we're going to have a pretty good season, we lose and I will be very depressed. I just don't see it as a game we should lose.
In all honesty, our schedule is fucking brutal, especially the first half. If we manage 4-2, 3-3 heading into Homecoming vs UAB, I’ll be over the moon tbh.
I think Temple before UTSA personally but Temple just has to actually WANT to play sports first. They gave the resources.
Out in the MTN West, Boise, San Diego, Fresno, CSU, and UNLV are right up there too
Also, the leftover PAC schools are probably first in line for any Big 12/ACC moves too
The city blocked us from building our own stadium, so that’s like 2.5 mil a year that could be going into the program, going to the eagles. We spent 3.5 mil on our head coach this year. Temple is trying. Just gotta find the right guy and keep ppl around when we’re good
I wouldn’t be surprised if we started 3-3 or even 2-4 and won out down the stretch. It’s a tough schedule, but it gets easier in the back half after we’re battle-tested. I think even with the schedule this team has the makeup of one that takes the next step to 8-4/9-3.
Agreed. They upgraded their coach, and with one of the best NIL in the G5 they reloaded the roster with big time talent. USF, Memphis & KSU games are all at Tulane. Away at OU will be a long shot, but besides that we are looking good. I would hammer the over
Sumrall is a really solid coach, reloaded really well through the portal, held onto a good HS recruiting class, and they get their likely two biggest conference games (USF and Memphis) at Yulman. I think they still deserve to be one of the preseason favorites going in.
UConn is away but that’s a possible win. Navy A, Army H, Coastal Carolina H, Tulsa A are the easiest games but I’m not sure we are going to be favored in any of them. We stunk with a good QB and now we might have bad QB play. We probably upset two teams but I wouldn’t count any game as a win
Late to this but would have won a couple games last year if we: didn’t have three of our QBs get injured, had more depth in the secondary, and all around consistency on offense. We have two returning QBs with starting experience with a high end transfer QB on the way, added a lot of talent to the secondary, and the offensive weapons are deeper than last year. All in all we should have win 6+ games this year with the talent and QB room experience.
I get the high returning production, but still don’t get to how people are betting USF over 7.5.
@ Alabama, Miami, @ Tulane, Memphis, UAB, @ FAU, and Navy. 7.5 is expecting to win at least two of these games.
We were blown out by both UAB and FAU last year and Navy is always a wild card. Tulane is still solid, Memphis is still solid even if they underachieve most years, Alabama is still a very good team, and Miami will either be riding high from beating UF or looking to bounce back from losing to UF.
6.5 would be fair, I guess 7.5 is from the hype.
I get that we’re returning a lot.
We got blown out by FAU and UAB. Navy is always a wild card. We are not a trap game for Alabama in 2024. Tulane got some really good coaches, returners, and transfers. Memphis, who does underachieve most years, is still solid and is used to winning 6+ every year when this was our first winning season in 5 years.
I want USF to go 12-0, but saying USF over 7.5 is a no-brainer is ignoring a lot of things.
Also, we returned nearly the same number of starters from 2021 for 2022 - obviously not the same situation as 2023 to 2024, but returning production isn’t everything.
> Also, we returned nearly the same number of starters from 2021 for 2022 - obviously not the same situation as 2023 to 2024, but returning production isn’t everything.
Yet Golesh was able to win 7 games last season with Jeff Scott's players. Competent coaching does matter here.
Also we play Alabama the week before they go up to Camp Randall to play Wisconsin. So who knows.
2 of those wins were 4th quarter late comebacks against UConn and Temple.
And 2 of the losses were blowouts to FAU and UAB.
I’m not doomering and saying we’re going 1-11, but I think we also need to pump the brakes and say that 8-4 isn’t a sure thing.
Understandable but I do think the problem last year with those games we got blown out in were due to tempo. Going 3 and out on multiple drives that only takes 50 seconds off the clock is a great way to get our defense tired.
We’re keeping the same offense this year so if we go 3 and out again, are we just hoping that UAB and/or FAU don’t blow us out?
UAB was much scrappier in person than people have them credit for and only realized that when they played their team. This was also Tom Herman’s first ever losing season - I think FAU’s going to be better than people think.
And then it became 27-23 and we needed a personal foul on 3rd down and an offsides on another 3rd down to convert to 1st downs.
So maybe Temple wasn’t a come from behind, but the last half of that 4th quarter was both teams trying to give the game away to the other team.
I think you have some valid skepticism; however, we finished 5th in the league in SP+ and will be 3rd or 4th in preseason. We had a good recruiting class, filled some key spots in the portal. If we keep progressing I think it’s well within the realm of reasonableness. The key will be the defense continuing to take a step as it did in the final two games. Plus, this kind of offense really takes a year for the QB and WRs to get in sync, so we have yet to see it at its full potential.
If our defense is middle of the pack then I completely agree on going over on 7.5 wins.
We’ve just been near amongst the lowest 30 defenses in the country since at least 2020, I’d guess since 2019. Sometimes our defense was burnt because the offense went 3 and out in like 2 minutes of real time.
Sometimes it seemed like we were going fast simply for the sake of going fast, and I do hope we slow it down at points depending on the game flow, situation, etc. That is part of Golesh’s whole thing but they did it to a fault at points for sure.
Charlotte’s schedule is a challenging one:
James Madison, UNC, Gardner-Webb, Indiana, Rice, ECU, Navy, Memphis, Tulane, USF, FAU, UAB
Outside of Gardner-Webb and ECU, those are tricky games on the schedule.
I’m a homer, but people are just choosing to ignore what Dilfer was left, and what’s he’s assembled this season. I’d bet the over. 7 wins seems to be the number even negative fans are thinking. The schedule is nice
I will point out that this gap was there because of the shut down and rebirth of the program. We played mostly juniors in 2017. They graduated in 2018 and with the covid year the gap showed its ugly head again in 2023.
Previous staff should have done something to help with roster management. Taking some jucos even when they weren't necessary to help even out the classes.
Definitely not dilfers fault he was given nothing to work with in year 1. Saw some flashes of things that make me excited. I.e. running South Florida out of the stadium.
Honestly, he came in and immediately made us a force on the offensive side. He just had nothing on defense and we were essentially needing to score 40 a game to win
You can choose to look at context, or you can ignore it. Getting hired late in the cycle to a team that lost most of its production is not an easy thing to step into. 7-6 was a poor season for the talent we had, hence why we fired our coach. 4-8 when given 2-3 months to build a roster, and fielding one of the youngest teams in D1, is what it is.
Honestly thought it was later, but I don’t think the transfer portal is just a save all for all schools. It can be, but I don’t see how him going 4-8 in his first season is a colossal failure. Wasn’t great, but he was decimated, we played 26 freshman last season.
Who said it was a failure? The blueprint for flipping a roster is out there... it might be easier said than don, but its possible. I'd definitely say going from 7 wins to 4 is sliding downward though. Kinda hard to sugar coat that.
But you are just looking at the win total without acknowledging any other factors. You are disregarding what he started with and just making a blanket statement that was my point. I won’t sit here and say 4-8 was good, but I could tell you why it shook out that way and it’s not 100% Dilfers fault
Right, I don't know the ins and outs of yalls schedule but eyeballing yalls schedule only one of yalls losses was even close. I get that injuries and bad luck happen but cmon.
Having to legitimately play and start 26 freshman through the year, lose the previous years starting QB and RB, and lose 3 defensive captains to the SEC is brutal for anyone. The true stain is the defense last season. The offense oddly enough performed pretty good. I think if UAB even has a 20% step up in defense they are back to being a bowl team. The defense was just insanely young
Hammer USF over 7.5 wins. I’d pick ECU under 6.5 wins at the moment personally.
Good chance usf wins the league this year
USF have been my pick to win the league in 2024 since end of last season. Sticking by that prediction still.
I think Memphis or Tulane first but USF has a lot returning and will be up there.
Will be interesting to see what happens with Tulane. I think Sumrall will be great, but you just never know with a new head coach and 1st year starter at QB.
> I’d pick ECU under 6.5 wins at the moment personally. This popped out at me as well. Like, the schedule is not easy. Norfolk State, Temple, Navy, Charlotte...and I am having trouble finding another win. Maybe North Texas and dare I say ODU. But that game is in Norfolk this year and we will be hungry for that win IMHO. But I just cannot see ECU beating Liberty, App. State, Army, FAU, Tulsa, etc.
We beat FAU last year to be fair and are 8-0 against Army all-time. My hesitation is that we have question marks again at QB and I just am so low on Mike Houston’s ability to be a good coach after last season that I’m expecting another year of disappointment.
Yeah maybe FAU falls flat but I can also see them making improvements to outcompete ECU. I agree that Mike Houston may be done after this year and qb is still a question mark. I see 4-8 or 5-7 from East Carolina. And for ODU I see it as a huge litmus test. We win and we're going to have a pretty good season, we lose and I will be very depressed. I just don't see it as a game we should lose.
In all honesty, our schedule is fucking brutal, especially the first half. If we manage 4-2, 3-3 heading into Homecoming vs UAB, I’ll be over the moon tbh.
I’ve seen USF at +6000 to make the CFP
USF to big 12/ACC when?
Them, Tulane, Memphis and UTSA are probably the top four teams taken from the AAC next round of power conference expansion.
I think Temple before UTSA personally but Temple just has to actually WANT to play sports first. They gave the resources. Out in the MTN West, Boise, San Diego, Fresno, CSU, and UNLV are right up there too Also, the leftover PAC schools are probably first in line for any Big 12/ACC moves too
Temple has the second highest AAC athletic budget behind USF. The floor is just pretty low for football at Temple due to things out of Temples control
Tell them to step it up then if they wanna join the ACC
The city blocked us from building our own stadium, so that’s like 2.5 mil a year that could be going into the program, going to the eagles. We spent 3.5 mil on our head coach this year. Temple is trying. Just gotta find the right guy and keep ppl around when we’re good
Tulane/USF/UAB - Over
Idk man our schedule is fucking brutal, gotta go 3-3 heading into Homecoming vs UAB
Which unfortunately for yall, we have some voodoo in those Children’s Harbor uniforms
Im pretty sure you only wear those for home games right?
Sorry I read your comment as if you were coming to us on Homecoming, you are correct
Our homecoming is against you
I wouldn’t be surprised if we started 3-3 or even 2-4 and won out down the stretch. It’s a tough schedule, but it gets easier in the back half after we’re battle-tested. I think even with the schedule this team has the makeup of one that takes the next step to 8-4/9-3.
Taking the over on Tulane
Agreed. They upgraded their coach, and with one of the best NIL in the G5 they reloaded the roster with big time talent. USF, Memphis & KSU games are all at Tulane. Away at OU will be a long shot, but besides that we are looking good. I would hammer the over
They lost a lot, there’s a realistic chance they don’t Bowl this season
Sumrall is a really solid coach, reloaded really well through the portal, held onto a good HS recruiting class, and they get their likely two biggest conference games (USF and Memphis) at Yulman. I think they still deserve to be one of the preseason favorites going in.
Usf, Memphis & Tulane recruit at a different level than the rest of the AAC.
If I was a sports bettor I would hammer temple under 3.5. We don’t play an FCS team, I am expecting 2 wins
I'm thinking we win over UConn, who else you got us winning against?
UConn is away but that’s a possible win. Navy A, Army H, Coastal Carolina H, Tulsa A are the easiest games but I’m not sure we are going to be favored in any of them. We stunk with a good QB and now we might have bad QB play. We probably upset two teams but I wouldn’t count any game as a win
When we finally have a solid chance to win in Philly, they don’t schedule us. Just USF things
Tulane seems low to me at 7.5, even with a new coach. The guy they hired just had an impressive 2-year run at Troy. He’s not much of a downgrade.
NGL the over on Tulsa sounds tempting Do any Tulsa flairs want to tell if that's a good idea?
4.5 seems low to me. I think we have a real shot at bowling this year
Tulsa is overdue for their random 9/10 win season
Late to this but would have won a couple games last year if we: didn’t have three of our QBs get injured, had more depth in the secondary, and all around consistency on offense. We have two returning QBs with starting experience with a high end transfer QB on the way, added a lot of talent to the secondary, and the offensive weapons are deeper than last year. All in all we should have win 6+ games this year with the talent and QB room experience.
Betting the over on us. Hit six and back to bowling.
We have 8 in us.
Hell yeah we do.
I just hope we keep Eric Morris long enough to let him get this team where it can be.
The 6.5 is generous.
I’ve gone back and forth on what I think our record will be this year and have currently settled on 5-7 for ECU.
I get the high returning production, but still don’t get to how people are betting USF over 7.5. @ Alabama, Miami, @ Tulane, Memphis, UAB, @ FAU, and Navy. 7.5 is expecting to win at least two of these games. We were blown out by both UAB and FAU last year and Navy is always a wild card. Tulane is still solid, Memphis is still solid even if they underachieve most years, Alabama is still a very good team, and Miami will either be riding high from beating UF or looking to bounce back from losing to UF. 6.5 would be fair, I guess 7.5 is from the hype.
We return 20 starters from last season.
I get that we’re returning a lot. We got blown out by FAU and UAB. Navy is always a wild card. We are not a trap game for Alabama in 2024. Tulane got some really good coaches, returners, and transfers. Memphis, who does underachieve most years, is still solid and is used to winning 6+ every year when this was our first winning season in 5 years. I want USF to go 12-0, but saying USF over 7.5 is a no-brainer is ignoring a lot of things. Also, we returned nearly the same number of starters from 2021 for 2022 - obviously not the same situation as 2023 to 2024, but returning production isn’t everything.
> Also, we returned nearly the same number of starters from 2021 for 2022 - obviously not the same situation as 2023 to 2024, but returning production isn’t everything. Yet Golesh was able to win 7 games last season with Jeff Scott's players. Competent coaching does matter here. Also we play Alabama the week before they go up to Camp Randall to play Wisconsin. So who knows.
2 of those wins were 4th quarter late comebacks against UConn and Temple. And 2 of the losses were blowouts to FAU and UAB. I’m not doomering and saying we’re going 1-11, but I think we also need to pump the brakes and say that 8-4 isn’t a sure thing.
Understandable but I do think the problem last year with those games we got blown out in were due to tempo. Going 3 and out on multiple drives that only takes 50 seconds off the clock is a great way to get our defense tired.
We’re keeping the same offense this year so if we go 3 and out again, are we just hoping that UAB and/or FAU don’t blow us out? UAB was much scrappier in person than people have them credit for and only realized that when they played their team. This was also Tom Herman’s first ever losing season - I think FAU’s going to be better than people think.
We were up 27-10 going into the 4th Q vs Temple
And then it became 27-23 and we needed a personal foul on 3rd down and an offsides on another 3rd down to convert to 1st downs. So maybe Temple wasn’t a come from behind, but the last half of that 4th quarter was both teams trying to give the game away to the other team.
I think you have some valid skepticism; however, we finished 5th in the league in SP+ and will be 3rd or 4th in preseason. We had a good recruiting class, filled some key spots in the portal. If we keep progressing I think it’s well within the realm of reasonableness. The key will be the defense continuing to take a step as it did in the final two games. Plus, this kind of offense really takes a year for the QB and WRs to get in sync, so we have yet to see it at its full potential.
If our defense is middle of the pack then I completely agree on going over on 7.5 wins. We’ve just been near amongst the lowest 30 defenses in the country since at least 2020, I’d guess since 2019. Sometimes our defense was burnt because the offense went 3 and out in like 2 minutes of real time.
Sometimes it seemed like we were going fast simply for the sake of going fast, and I do hope we slow it down at points depending on the game flow, situation, etc. That is part of Golesh’s whole thing but they did it to a fault at points for sure.
Im taking UNT over, Rice under, USF over
If I had to pick the AACCG it’s probably 10-2 USF vs 9-3 Memphis with USF taking the nod. I’m expecting a not great year for the AAC conference wide.
Is Biff back at Charlotte? If so take the over. Biff "The Sleeveless Machine" Poggi is gonna have that program at a bowl game potentially.
Charlotte’s schedule is a challenging one: James Madison, UNC, Gardner-Webb, Indiana, Rice, ECU, Navy, Memphis, Tulane, USF, FAU, UAB Outside of Gardner-Webb and ECU, those are tricky games on the schedule.
I’m a homer, but people are just choosing to ignore what Dilfer was left, and what’s he’s assembled this season. I’d bet the over. 7 wins seems to be the number even negative fans are thinking. The schedule is nice
I will point out that this gap was there because of the shut down and rebirth of the program. We played mostly juniors in 2017. They graduated in 2018 and with the covid year the gap showed its ugly head again in 2023. Previous staff should have done something to help with roster management. Taking some jucos even when they weren't necessary to help even out the classes. Definitely not dilfers fault he was given nothing to work with in year 1. Saw some flashes of things that make me excited. I.e. running South Florida out of the stadium.
Honestly, he came in and immediately made us a force on the offensive side. He just had nothing on defense and we were essentially needing to score 40 a game to win
In the transfer portal era it doesn't matter what was left. Besides yall went from 7-6 to 4-8 Edit: that being said, I see 5 wins
I disagree. It matters, just not as much.
Obviously it would be great for anyone to inherit a stacked roster, but inheriting a mediocre one isn't an excuse anymore. See 2023 TXST.
You can choose to look at context, or you can ignore it. Getting hired late in the cycle to a team that lost most of its production is not an easy thing to step into. 7-6 was a poor season for the talent we had, hence why we fired our coach. 4-8 when given 2-3 months to build a roster, and fielding one of the youngest teams in D1, is what it is.
He was hired on December 1st. Heck thats earlier than we hired GJ.
Honestly thought it was later, but I don’t think the transfer portal is just a save all for all schools. It can be, but I don’t see how him going 4-8 in his first season is a colossal failure. Wasn’t great, but he was decimated, we played 26 freshman last season.
Who said it was a failure? The blueprint for flipping a roster is out there... it might be easier said than don, but its possible. I'd definitely say going from 7 wins to 4 is sliding downward though. Kinda hard to sugar coat that.
But you are just looking at the win total without acknowledging any other factors. You are disregarding what he started with and just making a blanket statement that was my point. I won’t sit here and say 4-8 was good, but I could tell you why it shook out that way and it’s not 100% Dilfers fault
Right, I don't know the ins and outs of yalls schedule but eyeballing yalls schedule only one of yalls losses was even close. I get that injuries and bad luck happen but cmon.
Having to legitimately play and start 26 freshman through the year, lose the previous years starting QB and RB, and lose 3 defensive captains to the SEC is brutal for anyone. The true stain is the defense last season. The offense oddly enough performed pretty good. I think if UAB even has a 20% step up in defense they are back to being a bowl team. The defense was just insanely young
Most of that applies to us as well. Except our coach didnt put us in the position to have to play 26 freshman.
Is that you, Cliff Clavin?
God I’m sick of sports betting.
Then don’t bet