Alright, this thread has kind of slowed down lately since a lot of the discussion has been in the ND and weekly CFB threads, but I'll just post some of my thoughts and updates about this year so far.
1. Anthony LaLota committed to Michigan. He is either a high 4* DE or a 5* OT, but he wants to play DE and that's where Michigan recruited him. DE is a huge need for us, so this is good. He has some chance to move up in the rankings, as he has not been playing football that long and more than likely has a lot of work he can do, but who really cares. He's also the epitome of a New Jersey Guido, but I'll take what I can when it comes to DEs.
2. Threet is the solid starter now. Rod said Sheridan was still in his mind a "little bit" but that's hardly convincing. Basically, thank God for this. Sheridan was pretty bad, and ND fans might recognize him as the "walk-on who threw two INTs in like 4 minutes" in that game. Threet looked pretty good, especially for a freshman, in the ND game. He threw for almost 3x as many yards as the previous game he started, so science says he'll be throwing for about 10,000 ypg by the end of the year. Or something.
3. It's been pretty cool to watch the offense visibly improve how it has, minus the OMGFUMBLES. Hopefully it wasn't a fluke, but Threet did look light years ahead in throwing competency from where he was during the Miami game. His decisions were always pretty fine, but he's making some plays now. McGuffie was also sick. Carlos Brown made some minor rumblings about his playing time, but I don't think anyone really cares when other RBs are producing.
4. Here's how I think we stack up for the rest of the year against the remaining teams we face:
Wisky: I think they're overrated, but that we'll probably still lose. ND pounded ahead for some decent yards when they did go with that. Our linebackers have had trouble recognizing plays fast enough to stop these kinds of runs for less than 4-5 yards, and that happens to be PJ Hill's specialty, so...yeah. That said, if the D-line gets it together and the offense keeps improving, we have a shot. I think we'll lose, but if a bunch of "ifs" come together, we could make it a game. It's a home game FWIW.
Illinois: I haven't been able to watch anything they've done, but by all reports, they've been inconsistent. I think this will be more competitive than I thought at the beginning of the year. I'm going to tentatively predict a win just to generate some discussion (not sold on this at all), maybe MT2R can fill us in with some more detail about this team. Juice still looks a bit shaky through the air and, just looking by stats (admittedly not the best way to do it), looks like he hasn't put together a complete game both running and passing, but he has had games where he passed well (Missouri) and ran well (E. Illinios). How much his numbers were brought down by sacks (6 times) I don't know. This is a home game.
Toledo: Christ, there better not be much to say about this game by the time it comes around. Win. Please.
Penn State: They've looked real good so far, but they've played **** and ****tier teams. This game is at PSU and we'll probably lose unless they look completely, utterly different against decent teams.
Michigan State: Ringer is going to give us problems, but Hoyer blows, and Ringer's YPC outside of the FAU game isn't anything spectacular. Against Cal it was downright bad. He's also averaging 34 carries per game, so if he doesn't get drastically reduced carries or completely worn out by this point, I'll be surprised. Barring a regression (highly possible), I think we win this (it's at home). Making Hoyer beat us would be smart as our corners don't suck, and he isn't good enough to consistently make us pay in the parts of our secondary where we do suck.
Purdue: Not an auto-win by any means, but I somewhat expect to win this barring, again, a regression back to how we were at the start of the year. Expect Roy Roundtree to go for 14 receptions for 298 yards with 4 TDs this game.
Minny, NW: I don't know dick about either of these teams. Just win please.
OSU: Yeah, expecting to lose here. Expecting Pryor to make us all cry and wish he would have come here. Unless UM keeps improving exponentially and OSU keeps getting worse and worse and worse and worse and worse, we really don't have a shot.
So yeah, this is somewhat optimistic based just on how the offense looked against ND blah blah sample size, I know. I know this year could still go horribly wrong.
So basically...
Best Case: We win all the games I homerishly predicted we'll win (Illinois, Toledo, MSU, Purdue, Minny, and NW) along with stealing one from either PSU or Wisky, leaving us at 8-4 (6-2). This is way optimistic yo.
Worst Case: Lose to Wisky, Illinios, PSU, MSU, OSU, Purdue, and one of Minny/NW, leaving us at 3-9 (1-7). Hey, dat's ND from last year.
Realistically I really think we'll hit 6-6 or 7-5 if we keep improving, so not a whole lot has changed since the beginning of the year. If we regress at all, well, GG season.
