FWIW, these are the power ratings at the end of 2013. Keep in mind these are power ratings, and not rankings out of 128.

I think any of the top four can win it. ULM and Texas State fans might take offense to that comment, but I think they could easily be dark horses. ULM, of course, has been the dark horse every year, so we'll see if it comes to pass this year. Appalachian State and Georgia Southern are dark horses to be dark horses in my opinion. The shot is slim, but no one is used to playing either one of them and they will certainly be underestimated the entire season. They have the element of surprise.

(126) South Alabama
(125) Arkansas St
(121) Troy
(119) Louisiana
(119) ULM
(112) Texas State
(103) Georgia State
(101) New Mexico State
(100) Idaho
(100) Georgia Southern
(95) Appalachian State

(123) WKU

http://www.philsteele.com/fbsinfo/2013/1...tings.html
http://www.philsteele.com/FCSINFO/Fcs_pratings.html

Our schedule is a lot rougher than the other teams'

Here are our 5 strongest games

@ South Carolina
Mississippi State
Navy
@ULL
@Arkansas State

We're gonna have to be winning some of those games to justify that power rating. I think we can. If we do we will prove that rating. But its not a slam dunk here in Jagville.

I'd suggest looking the ESPN 2014 power rankings, which use some Phil Steele data to predict the season to come.
http://espn.go.com/college-football/stor...ex-ratings
Basically the schools are judged on recent records, returning starters and recruiting classes.
USA came in #90 and an overall -6.0 rating. That means that the ESPN system thinks the Jags are 6 points worse than an average FBS team on a neutral field. The offense was 81st with a -1.5, the defense 102nd with a -4.1 and the special teams also 102nd with a -.4.

(05-21-2014 12:55 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  Our schedule is a lot rougher than the other teams'

Here are our 5 strongest games

@ South Carolina
Mississippi State
Navy
@ULL
@Arkansas State

We're gonna have to be winning some of those games to justify that power rating. I think we can. If we do we will prove that rating. But its not a slam dunk here in Jagville.

Here are the Jag opponents' 2014 ESPN rankings:

South Carolina - #9
Mississippi State - #17
Navy - #60
ULL - #71
Kent St - #98
Ark St - #108
Texas State - #109
Troy - #116
Idaho - #120
App St - #124
Ga Sou - #125
Ga St - #127

(05-21-2014 12:56 PM)AtlantaJag Wrote:  I'd suggest looking the ESPN 2014 power rankings, which use some Phil Steele data to predict the season to come.
http://espn.go.com/college-football/stor...ex-ratings

I don't disagree with the method persay, but some of the results are obviously wrong. The list says Arkansas State is going to have the 6th worst offense in the country. I'd lay my house down that they won't finish anywhere near 123rd out of 128. Their team is ranked 108th and I'll call BS on that too. Louisiana's offense ranked 59th makes sense, but to rank Troy's at 84 is a mistake. Troy could lose games on defense, sure, but Troy's offense won't be 25 spots behind Louisiana's. Both are very good offenses.

Troy won't finish 116th out of 128 no matter how bad some people want them to.

(05-21-2014 01:13 PM)TroyFootball05 Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 12:56 PM)AtlantaJag Wrote:  I'd suggest looking the ESPN 2014 power rankings, which use some Phil Steele data to predict the season to come.
http://espn.go.com/college-football/stor...ex-ratings

I don't disagree with the method persay, but some of the results are obviously wrong. The list says Arkansas State is going to have the 6th worst offense in the country. I'd lay my house down that they won't finish anywhere near 123rd out of 128. Their team is ranked 108th and I'll call BS on that too. Louisiana's offense ranked 59th makes sense, but to rank Troy's at 84 is a mistake. Troy could lose games on defense, sure, but Troy's offense won't be 25 spots behind Louisiana's. Both are very good offenses.

Troy won't finish 116th out of 128 no matter how bad some people want them to.

This system is more math-based than opinion, which makes it more impartial but eliminates some facts that might change the ranking.
For instance, not returning a starting QB is a big penalty, but they have no way knowing what the quality of the new QB. A coaching change at a program that's been winning is also a negative.

(05-21-2014 01:13 PM)TroyFootball05 Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 12:56 PM)AtlantaJag Wrote:  I'd suggest looking the ESPN 2014 power rankings, which use some Phil Steele data to predict the season to come.
http://espn.go.com/college-football/stor...ex-ratings

I don't disagree with the method persay, but some of the results are obviously wrong. The list says Arkansas State is going to have the 6th worst offense in the country. I'd lay my house down that they won't finish anywhere near 123rd out of 128. Their team is ranked 108th and I'll call BS on that too. Louisiana's offense ranked 59th makes sense, but to rank Troy's at 84 is a mistake. Troy could lose games on defense, sure, but Troy's offense won't be 25 spots behind Louisiana's. Both are very good offenses.

Troy won't finish 116th out of 128 no matter how bad some people want them to.

Yeah, having our offense at 123 is a joke. He has ODU ranked way ahead of us. UNC beat ODU 80-20 last year. This year, the coaches behind that 80 points will be at ASU and have established FBS players to work with and ODU is in their first full year.

Makes total sense...

The returning starter data is not reliable either. We are typically listed as not having a returning starter at RB. Truth is that Michael Gordon replaced David Oku with 4 games left in the regular season and ended up with almost 1000 yards of total offense and 11 TDs for the year. I don't care what ESPN thinks, Gordon is a returning starter. He was second team all-conference with only 4 starts in the regular season.

(05-21-2014 01:34 PM)Crump1 Wrote:  The returning starter data is not reliable either. We are typically listed as not having a returning starter at RB. Truth is that Michael Gordon replaced David Oku with 4 games left in the regular season and ended up with almost 1000 yards of total offense and 11 TDs for the year. I don't care what ESPN thinks, Gordon is a returning starter. He was second team all-conference with only 4 starts in the regular season.

Phil Steele says Troy returns only one wide receiver. Anyone who follows Troy knows that doesn't matter at all. Troy at one point in 2008 lead the country with 22 different players having caught a pass. That trend has not stopped. Steele says we return only one running back, but we return all five running backs on the depth chart from last year as well as 4 out of 5 offensive linemen, not three (8 out of 10 on the depth chart, and added an Ole Miss Transfer).

We lost 8 of our Top 9 wide receivers before the 2011 season and still finished in the Top 25 in passing. It does not matter.

I take no offense. I think we aren't quite there to win the conference. Could it happen? Sure anything can happen but I think we finish 7-5.

(05-21-2014 01:34 PM)Crump1 Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 01:13 PM)TroyFootball05 Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 12:56 PM)AtlantaJag Wrote:  I'd suggest looking the ESPN 2014 power rankings, which use some Phil Steele data to predict the season to come.
http://espn.go.com/college-football/stor...ex-ratings

I don't disagree with the method persay, but some of the results are obviously wrong. The list says Arkansas State is going to have the 6th worst offense in the country. I'd lay my house down that they won't finish anywhere near 123rd out of 128. Their team is ranked 108th and I'll call BS on that too. Louisiana's offense ranked 59th makes sense, but to rank Troy's at 84 is a mistake. Troy could lose games on defense, sure, but Troy's offense won't be 25 spots behind Louisiana's. Both are very good offenses.

Troy won't finish 116th out of 128 no matter how bad some people want them to.

Yeah, having our offense at 123 is a joke. He has ODU ranked way ahead of us. UNC beat ODU 80-20 last year. This year, the coaches behind that 80 points will be at ASU and have established FBS players to work with and ODU is in their first full year.

Makes total sense...

The returning starter data is not reliable either. We are typically listed as not having a returning starter at RB. Truth is that Michael Gordon replaced David Oku with 4 games left in the regular season and ended up with almost 1000 yards of total offense and 11 TDs for the year. I don't care what ESPN thinks, Gordon is a returning starter. He was second team all-conference with only 4 starts in the regular season.

The coaching change improving the team's offense is an opinion. It may turn out to be correct, but the system the used penalizes a winning team for a coaching change and gives a bonus to a losing team making a coaching change. It's a pretty logical way to assess it.

(05-21-2014 01:41 PM)TroyFootball05 Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 01:34 PM)Crump1 Wrote:  The returning starter data is not reliable either. We are typically listed as not having a returning starter at RB. Truth is that Michael Gordon replaced David Oku with 4 games left in the regular season and ended up with almost 1000 yards of total offense and 11 TDs for the year. I don't care what ESPN thinks, Gordon is a returning starter. He was second team all-conference with only 4 starts in the regular season.

Phil Steele says Troy returns only one wide receiver. Anyone who follows Troy knows that doesn't matter at all. Troy at one point in 2008 lead the country with 22 different players having caught a pass. That trend has not stopped. Steele says we return only one running back, but we return all five running backs on the depth chart from last year as well as 4 out of 5 offensive linemen, not three (8 out of 10 on the depth chart, and added an Ole Miss Transfer).

We lost 8 of our Top 9 wide receivers before the 2011 season and still finished in the Top 25 in passing. It does not matter.

Steele may be flawed, but he's easily the best at assembling objective information about every team. Nevertheless, he can be wrong.

(05-21-2014 02:14 PM)AtlantaJag Wrote:  Steele may be flawed, but he's easily the best at assembling objective information about every team. Nevertheless, he can be wrong.

Absolutely. He is the best, bar none. I buy his magazine every year for my own research. If you ever need to compare player size, his book is the one to do it. His unit rankings are usually very informative as well.

(05-21-2014 02:08 PM)AtlantaJag Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 01:34 PM)Crump1 Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 01:13 PM)TroyFootball05 Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 12:56 PM)AtlantaJag Wrote:  I'd suggest looking the ESPN 2014 power rankings, which use some Phil Steele data to predict the season to come.
http://espn.go.com/college-football/stor...ex-ratings

I don't disagree with the method persay, but some of the results are obviously wrong. The list says Arkansas State is going to have the 6th worst offense in the country. I'd lay my house down that they won't finish anywhere near 123rd out of 128. Their team is ranked 108th and I'll call BS on that too. Louisiana's offense ranked 59th makes sense, but to rank Troy's at 84 is a mistake. Troy could lose games on defense, sure, but Troy's offense won't be 25 spots behind Louisiana's. Both are very good offenses.

Troy won't finish 116th out of 128 no matter how bad some people want them to.

Yeah, having our offense at 123 is a joke. He has ODU ranked way ahead of us. UNC beat ODU 80-20 last year. This year, the coaches behind that 80 points will be at ASU and have established FBS players to work with and ODU is in their first full year.

Makes total sense...

The returning starter data is not reliable either. We are typically listed as not having a returning starter at RB. Truth is that Michael Gordon replaced David Oku with 4 games left in the regular season and ended up with almost 1000 yards of total offense and 11 TDs for the year. I don't care what ESPN thinks, Gordon is a returning starter. He was second team all-conference with only 4 starts in the regular season.

The coaching change improving the team's offense is an opinion. It may turn out to be correct, but the system the used penalizes a winning team for a coaching change and gives a bonus to a losing team making a coaching change. It's a pretty logical way to assess it.

Who said anything about a coaching change improving the offense? I happen to think that will happen for us because Harsin nearly wrecked our offense but my point was that there is no way our offense will be that BAD, not that a new coach will make it better.

We had the most players make all-conference in 2013 (12). We lost only 4 of those, including our kicker, so we return 8 who made all-conference.

We have the players but every year the prognosticators will predict a drastic fall because they are really just playing odds more than analyzing data. Our schedule is brutal though.

(05-21-2014 02:47 PM)Crump1 Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 02:08 PM)AtlantaJag Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 01:34 PM)Crump1 Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 01:13 PM)TroyFootball05 Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 12:56 PM)AtlantaJag Wrote:  I'd suggest looking the ESPN 2014 power rankings, which use some Phil Steele data to predict the season to come.
http://espn.go.com/college-football/stor...ex-ratings

I don't disagree with the method persay, but some of the results are obviously wrong. The list says Arkansas State is going to have the 6th worst offense in the country. I'd lay my house down that they won't finish anywhere near 123rd out of 128. Their team is ranked 108th and I'll call BS on that too. Louisiana's offense ranked 59th makes sense, but to rank Troy's at 84 is a mistake. Troy could lose games on defense, sure, but Troy's offense won't be 25 spots behind Louisiana's. Both are very good offenses.

Troy won't finish 116th out of 128 no matter how bad some people want them to.

Yeah, having our offense at 123 is a joke. He has ODU ranked way ahead of us. UNC beat ODU 80-20 last year. This year, the coaches behind that 80 points will be at ASU and have established FBS players to work with and ODU is in their first full year.

Makes total sense...

The returning starter data is not reliable either. We are typically listed as not having a returning starter at RB. Truth is that Michael Gordon replaced David Oku with 4 games left in the regular season and ended up with almost 1000 yards of total offense and 11 TDs for the year. I don't care what ESPN thinks, Gordon is a returning starter. He was second team all-conference with only 4 starts in the regular season.

The coaching change improving the team's offense is an opinion. It may turn out to be correct, but the system the used penalizes a winning team for a coaching change and gives a bonus to a losing team making a coaching change. It's a pretty logical way to assess it.

Who said anything about a coaching change improving the offense? I happen to think that will happen for us because Harsin nearly wrecked our offense but my point was that there is no way our offense will be that BAD, not that a new coach will make it better.

We had the most players make all-conference in 2013 (12). We lost only 4 of those, including our kicker, so we return 8 who made all-conference.

We have the players but every year the prognosticators will predict a drastic fall because they are really just playing odds more than analyzing data. Our schedule is brutal though.

I took your previous post to indicate that you thought that bringing in UNC's OC as your new head coach was one of the reasons the #123 was a joke.

I don't know the details of their system, but I think they don't take into account the specific quality of the returning players, only how many there are and how the team performed the previous year.

The system is far from perfect, but I think it's a pretty fair stab at evaluating 2014 teams based on the general information available.

(05-21-2014 02:59 PM)AtlantaJag Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 02:47 PM)Crump1 Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 02:08 PM)AtlantaJag Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 01:34 PM)Crump1 Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 01:13 PM)TroyFootball05 Wrote:  I don't disagree with the method persay, but some of the results are obviously wrong. The list says Arkansas State is going to have the 6th worst offense in the country. I'd lay my house down that they won't finish anywhere near 123rd out of 128. Their team is ranked 108th and I'll call BS on that too. Louisiana's offense ranked 59th makes sense, but to rank Troy's at 84 is a mistake. Troy could lose games on defense, sure, but Troy's offense won't be 25 spots behind Louisiana's. Both are very good offenses.

Troy won't finish 116th out of 128 no matter how bad some people want them to.

Yeah, having our offense at 123 is a joke. He has ODU ranked way ahead of us. UNC beat ODU 80-20 last year. This year, the coaches behind that 80 points will be at ASU and have established FBS players to work with and ODU is in their first full year.

Makes total sense...

The returning starter data is not reliable either. We are typically listed as not having a returning starter at RB. Truth is that Michael Gordon replaced David Oku with 4 games left in the regular season and ended up with almost 1000 yards of total offense and 11 TDs for the year. I don't care what ESPN thinks, Gordon is a returning starter. He was second team all-conference with only 4 starts in the regular season.

The coaching change improving the team's offense is an opinion. It may turn out to be correct, but the system the used penalizes a winning team for a coaching change and gives a bonus to a losing team making a coaching change. It's a pretty logical way to assess it.

Who said anything about a coaching change improving the offense? I happen to think that will happen for us because Harsin nearly wrecked our offense but my point was that there is no way our offense will be that BAD, not that a new coach will make it better.

We had the most players make all-conference in 2013 (12). We lost only 4 of those, including our kicker, so we return 8 who made all-conference.

We have the players but every year the prognosticators will predict a drastic fall because they are really just playing odds more than analyzing data. Our schedule is brutal though.

I took your previous post to indicate that you thought that bringing in UNC's OC as your new head coach was one of the reasons the #123 was a joke.

I don't know the details of their system, but I think they don't take into account the specific quality of the returning players, only how many there are and how the team performed the previous year.

The system is far from perfect, but I think it's a pretty fair stab at evaluating 2014 teams based on the general information available.

My point was that ODU is rated higher than ASU (which destroys credibility right away) despite getting beat 80-20 with most of the players they will return this year AND the OC at UNC who destroyed that ODU team still has access to better talent than ODU.

I think ESPN did not make a fair stab at all and there is no way the Red Wolves' offense will finish #123 out of 128.

Even if they just looked at the number returning and the performance last year, the prediction is terrible.

Why does ESPN like ODU so much anyway? First they spend all last year incorrectly calling them FBS and now they are ranking them preseason towards the top of G5 schools.

(05-21-2014 02:47 PM)Crump1 Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 02:08 PM)AtlantaJag Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 01:34 PM)Crump1 Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 01:13 PM)TroyFootball05 Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 12:56 PM)AtlantaJag Wrote:  I'd suggest looking the ESPN 2014 power rankings, which use some Phil Steele data to predict the season to come.
http://espn.go.com/college-football/stor...ex-ratings

I don't disagree with the method persay, but some of the results are obviously wrong. The list says Arkansas State is going to have the 6th worst offense in the country. I'd lay my house down that they won't finish anywhere near 123rd out of 128. Their team is ranked 108th and I'll call BS on that too. Louisiana's offense ranked 59th makes sense, but to rank Troy's at 84 is a mistake. Troy could lose games on defense, sure, but Troy's offense won't be 25 spots behind Louisiana's. Both are very good offenses.

Troy won't finish 116th out of 128 no matter how bad some people want them to.

Yeah, having our offense at 123 is a joke. He has ODU ranked way ahead of us. UNC beat ODU 80-20 last year. This year, the coaches behind that 80 points will be at ASU and have established FBS players to work with and ODU is in their first full year.

Makes total sense...

The returning starter data is not reliable either. We are typically listed as not having a returning starter at RB. Truth is that Michael Gordon replaced David Oku with 4 games left in the regular season and ended up with almost 1000 yards of total offense and 11 TDs for the year. I don't care what ESPN thinks, Gordon is a returning starter. He was second team all-conference with only 4 starts in the regular season.

The coaching change improving the team's offense is an opinion. It may turn out to be correct, but the system the used penalizes a winning team for a coaching change and gives a bonus to a losing team making a coaching change. It's a pretty logical way to assess it.

Who said anything about a coaching change improving the offense? I happen to think that will happen for us because Harsin nearly wrecked our offense but my point was that there is no way our offense will be that BAD, not that a new coach will make it better.

We had the most players make all-conference in 2013 (12). We lost only 4 of those, including our kicker, so we return 8 who made all-conference.

We have the players but every year the prognosticators will predict a drastic fall because they are really just playing odds more than analyzing data. Our schedule is brutal though.

So having to replace your all EVERYTHING QB didn't play a huge part in the ASU offense being what it was? And just because UL-L had a major let down after losing a starting QB and let ASU tie them...

doesn't mean ASU didn't fall.

2012 10 wins 2013 8 dropping 2 more games with more returning starters coming back is a big drop.

(05-21-2014 08:16 PM)WKUYG Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 02:47 PM)Crump1 Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 02:08 PM)AtlantaJag Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 01:34 PM)Crump1 Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 01:13 PM)TroyFootball05 Wrote:  I don't disagree with the method persay, but some of the results are obviously wrong. The list says Arkansas State is going to have the 6th worst offense in the country. I'd lay my house down that they won't finish anywhere near 123rd out of 128. Their team is ranked 108th and I'll call BS on that too. Louisiana's offense ranked 59th makes sense, but to rank Troy's at 84 is a mistake. Troy could lose games on defense, sure, but Troy's offense won't be 25 spots behind Louisiana's. Both are very good offenses.

Troy won't finish 116th out of 128 no matter how bad some people want them to.

Yeah, having our offense at 123 is a joke. He has ODU ranked way ahead of us. UNC beat ODU 80-20 last year. This year, the coaches behind that 80 points will be at ASU and have established FBS players to work with and ODU is in their first full year.

Makes total sense...

The returning starter data is not reliable either. We are typically listed as not having a returning starter at RB. Truth is that Michael Gordon replaced David Oku with 4 games left in the regular season and ended up with almost 1000 yards of total offense and 11 TDs for the year. I don't care what ESPN thinks, Gordon is a returning starter. He was second team all-conference with only 4 starts in the regular season.

The coaching change improving the team's offense is an opinion. It may turn out to be correct, but the system the used penalizes a winning team for a coaching change and gives a bonus to a losing team making a coaching change. It's a pretty logical way to assess it.

Who said anything about a coaching change improving the offense? I happen to think that will happen for us because Harsin nearly wrecked our offense but my point was that there is no way our offense will be that BAD, not that a new coach will make it better.

We had the most players make all-conference in 2013 (12). We lost only 4 of those, including our kicker, so we return 8 who made all-conference.

We have the players but every year the prognosticators will predict a drastic fall because they are really just playing odds more than analyzing data. Our schedule is brutal though.

So having to replace your all EVERYTHING QB didn't play a huge part in the ASU offense being what it was? And just because UL-L had a major let down after losing a starting QB and let ASU tie them...

doesn't mean ASU didn't fall.

2012 10 wins 2013 8 dropping 2 more games with more returning starters coming back is a big drop.

Two major let downs, after Broadway went down if you include the game he was injured in against ULM. Astate couldn't get the job done themselves, so all they had left was the hope of another team doing it for them.

(05-21-2014 01:44 PM)slycat Wrote:  I take no offense. I think we aren't quite there to win the conference. Could it happen? Sure anything can happen but I think we finish 7-5.

Our OOC isn't that tough, but we have stAte, USA, & the Cajuns on our schedule which I think will be our three toughest games (in no particular order).

Thankfully, we have stAte and the Cajuns at home this year. Unfortunately, we travel to USA.

(05-21-2014 08:16 PM)WKUYG Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 02:47 PM)Crump1 Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 02:08 PM)AtlantaJag Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 01:34 PM)Crump1 Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 01:13 PM)TroyFootball05 Wrote:  I don't disagree with the method persay, but some of the results are obviously wrong. The list says Arkansas State is going to have the 6th worst offense in the country. I'd lay my house down that they won't finish anywhere near 123rd out of 128. Their team is ranked 108th and I'll call BS on that too. Louisiana's offense ranked 59th makes sense, but to rank Troy's at 84 is a mistake. Troy could lose games on defense, sure, but Troy's offense won't be 25 spots behind Louisiana's. Both are very good offenses.

Troy won't finish 116th out of 128 no matter how bad some people want them to.

Yeah, having our offense at 123 is a joke. He has ODU ranked way ahead of us. UNC beat ODU 80-20 last year. This year, the coaches behind that 80 points will be at ASU and have established FBS players to work with and ODU is in their first full year.

Makes total sense...

The returning starter data is not reliable either. We are typically listed as not having a returning starter at RB. Truth is that Michael Gordon replaced David Oku with 4 games left in the regular season and ended up with almost 1000 yards of total offense and 11 TDs for the year. I don't care what ESPN thinks, Gordon is a returning starter. He was second team all-conference with only 4 starts in the regular season.

The coaching change improving the team's offense is an opinion. It may turn out to be correct, but the system the used penalizes a winning team for a coaching change and gives a bonus to a losing team making a coaching change. It's a pretty logical way to assess it.

Who said anything about a coaching change improving the offense? I happen to think that will happen for us because Harsin nearly wrecked our offense but my point was that there is no way our offense will be that BAD, not that a new coach will make it better.

We had the most players make all-conference in 2013 (12). We lost only 4 of those, including our kicker, so we return 8 who made all-conference.

We have the players but every year the prognosticators will predict a drastic fall because they are really just playing odds more than analyzing data. Our schedule is brutal though.

So having to replace your all EVERYTHING QB didn't play a huge part in the ASU offense being what it was? And just because UL-L had a major let down after losing a starting QB and let ASU tie them...

doesn't mean ASU didn't fall.

2012 10 wins 2013 8 dropping 2 more games with more returning starters coming back is a big drop.

Anyone that looks at the stats from before harsin handed the offense over and after could tell you the difference the play calling made. Harsin was truism to run a hurry up pro hybrid that was failing miserably evidenced by the Memphis game. He was extremely predictable you knew what he was going to run. When he handed the reins to Drinkwitz (malhazan hold over) everything changed.