If we get Whitson back full strength;
If we get Isaac Smith back;
Well......I was going to name them all, but we are still losing a ton of experience there. Coaching will be better, but I don't expect to be great.
Losing Booth and Reese on offense, and a QB, while a great athlete, isn't exactly the bastion of accuracy in an offense that demands that......eh, we'll see.
Road games at Minnesota and Carolina, both have good coaches that have guys ready to play. We aren't winning.
Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Texas will have better talent than us. We have a coach with a bad index so we won't win those games.
Mizzou, Ole Miss, Vandy our only chances at an SEC win. Ole Miss on road, we'll lose. Split the other two, 3-9.
9 game SEC sked gonna SUCK
Auburn has a new coach and does not have more talent - they are a basement dweller in the new SEC - they are Kentucky, SCar tier.
LSU has a new coach that has a track record of thriving off winning against mediocre teams and wilting in the big games. By the time we play them they'll have at least 2 losses, potentially 3 if OM wins its Super Bowl.
Texsa / Bama still have questions who their coach will be next year. Considering we should have beaten Texsa this year - both those games are definitely open for debate.
Vandy is due for a regression without Pavia.
OM is about to be gutted and will likely be on an interim coach for the Egg.
SCar having a good coach who just went... 4-8. With an OC who has steadily had his stock drop. He was so good in the SEC last time he wound up in the B12. We saw how well SCar's plan of "just let Sellers make magic" worked when that's all Briles O is.
Minnesota beats bad teams, upsets one mediocre team, loses to good teams. If you project us forward and we get the line help we need in the portal then we win this one pretty easily. If we don't then maybe we're the mediocre team they upset.
4-0 start is more likely than 2-2 start.
We will be at least 2-3 against Bama, Auburn, LSU, Texas and OU and at least 2-1 against Mizzou, OM, Vandy.
Find one more win in there and we're a 9-3 playoff team. (They're announcing 16 team any day)