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OptimisticOwl Offline
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Post: #61
RE: Predictions
(08-02-2018 07:04 PM)Pan95 Wrote:  Not to disrespect PVAM or UTEP, but if it is unreasonable to project wins over those teams, then we are in for a far longer rebuilding process than we initially hoped.

never said that.

I don't think it is unreasonable to project those teams as Rice wins, but they are not locks. We are treating them as locks.

For Hawaii Owl, yes I am cautiously optimistic. That's why I predicted four wins.
08-02-2018 09:54 PM
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OptimisticOwl Offline
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Post: #62
RE: Predictions
(08-02-2018 07:08 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  There’s a not-insane argument to be made that UTEP has slightly more talent.

But then they also have a coach who couldn’t win at one of the best G5 jobs...

\Still he has more D1 wins than our coach.

maybe he learned something since then. Hope not.
08-02-2018 09:56 PM
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OptimisticOwl Offline
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Post: #63
RE: Predictions
(08-02-2018 09:48 PM)owl at the moon Wrote:  My official prediction is 6-7 regular season (plus a bowl win to make it 7-7.

I will be following our special teams closely (win special teams and hold your own in the other phases and you give yourself a chance in every game). I will also predict that we go 12-1 in special teams play (13-1 including the bowl).

I also posted a game-by-game prediction over on the conference board and somehow came up with 9 wins. I’ll call that my high end. But I’ll be happy as long as we double last year’s win total. And win special teams 12 out of 13 times out. :)

I don't think 6-7 makes us automatically bowl eligible. I think it puts on the waiting list to fill in vacancies afterr all the automatics are placed.

I could be wrong, though. It happened once before.
08-02-2018 09:59 PM
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Owl 69/70/75 Online
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Post: #64
RE: Predictions
(08-02-2018 09:59 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  
(08-02-2018 09:48 PM)owl at the moon Wrote:  My official prediction is 6-7 regular season (plus a bowl win to make it 7-7.
I will be following our special teams closely (win special teams and hold your own in the other phases and you give yourself a chance in every game). I will also predict that we go 12-1 in special teams play (13-1 including the bowl).
I also posted a game-by-game prediction over on the conference board and somehow came up with 9 wins. I’ll call that my high end. But I’ll be happy as long as we double last year’s win total. And win special teams 12 out of 13 times out. :)
I don't think 6-7 makes us automatically bowl eligible. I think it puts on the waiting list to fill in vacancies afterr all the automatics are placed.
I could be wrong, though. It happened once before.

6-7 is not automatically eligible. There's a pecking order. Somebody posted it on some thread here. IIRC, a 6-7 team that was 6-6 in regular seven and played in and lost its conference's championship game gets in ahead of a team that played 13 regular season games and went 6-7. I believe given the number of bowls and the number of teams that regularly post wining records, in most years 6-7 gets in.
(This post was last modified: 08-03-2018 07:49 AM by Owl 69/70/75.)
08-02-2018 11:14 PM
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flash3200 Offline
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Post: #65
RE: Predictions
Talent wise this team could be a wash with last year or at least close enough to not be an observable difference. I hope to higher powers that the coaching is much improved and we can stay in games a little longer. Any team with a pulse can go 0.500 in the CUSA. Teams that let Army go up 35-0 at the half are officially corpses, so hopefully we can at least fog a mirror this year and be competitive in the worst football conference in FBS.

Slamdunk Wins: Zero. 0. None. We could still be really bad this year and we were in the bottom 5 of FBS schools last year. We were worse than a large amount of FCS schools.
We should win/If we don't win let's go count how many pitchforks are in the shed: Prairie View, UTEP. Unless UTEP has some miracle turnaround (which is possible by our November matchup), we should be able to handle this team again as they were the worst team in FBS. Let's count these two games as 1.75 expected wins.
Slightly favorable matchups: Old Dominion & Hawaii. Old Dom is a contemporary in the dregs of CUSA and we have a home date with them this year. The Hawaii date could be problematic from a travel standpoint, but that game should be highly competitive. Let's count these two games as 1.25 expected wins.
Slightly unfavorable matchups: FIU, UTSA, SoMiss, LaTech. These games should be competitive as we should regain the middle of the pack CUSA status, but we will need some luck to steal one and a lot of luck to steal 2. Let's count these games as 1.25 expected wins.
We should lose, but let's make bowl prep plans if we win: Houston, North Texas, UAB. Might going on a limb showing this much respect for UNT and UAB, but these teams were pretty legit last year. 0.5 expected wins
No chance in hell: LSU, Wake Forest. LSU seems gettable this year if Ogeron keeps losing the mandate (They lost to Troy!) but they will still be a solid team and won't they drop a game to a team struggling to make it back into the top75 of FBS. Wake is similarly a solid P5 football squad that has no business having interest beyond the halftime break against Rice. Zero point zero expected wins.

Using this approach, I come up with expectations of a 5-8 year. It sounds aspirational considering the results last year, but quite frankly we left a lot of value on the field last year due to poor tactics from a gameplan perspective and atrocious execution on an individual basis. Assuming those problems are no longer problems, this should be at least a 3 win team, so 4-5 wins doesn't seem like a stretch considering the awful quality of CUSA football. Quite frankly, taking the over on 3 wins seems like excellent risk/reward...hard to see this team only squeaking out 2 wins against this schedule but definitely possible if the rebuild starts slow (ie losing to PVAM in week zero).
08-03-2018 12:01 AM
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Antarius Offline
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Post: #66
RE: Predictions
I expect us to not suck like the last decade and try dumb **** like "lightning in a bottle" and the full on idiot mode fake field goals on 4th and 10+.

Anything better than the above and were already in the positive.

Welcome to low expectations. You probably will exceed.
08-03-2018 01:52 AM
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Ourland Offline
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Post: #67
RE: Predictions
(08-03-2018 01:52 AM)Antarius Wrote:  I expect us to not suck like the last decade and try dumb **** like "lightning in a bottle" and the full on idiot mode fake field goals on 4th and 10+.

Anything better than the above and were already in the positive.

Welcome to low expectations. You probably will exceed.

You've held out on this thread for three days only to contribute that?
(This post was last modified: 08-03-2018 11:08 AM by Ourland.)
08-03-2018 11:06 AM
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billstudabaker Offline
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Post: #68
RE: Predictions
I predict, and look forward to, Rice football that doesn't make my eyes bleed, and watching more than one or two series in a game before I change the channel (or go to the gym) out of frustration at the lack of preparation.
08-03-2018 02:19 PM
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OptimisticOwl Offline
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Post: #69
RE: Predictions
(08-03-2018 02:19 PM)billstudabaker Wrote:  I predict, and look forward to, Rice football that doesn't make my eyes bleed, and watching more than one or two series in a game before I change the channel (or go to the gym) out of frustration at the lack of preparation.

In terms of wins, how many is that?
08-03-2018 03:32 PM
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Antarius Offline
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Post: #70
RE: Predictions
(08-03-2018 02:19 PM)billstudabaker Wrote:  I predict, and look forward to, Rice football that doesn't make my eyes bleed, and watching more than one or two series in a game before I change the channel (or go to the gym) out of frustration at the lack of preparation.

My sentiments exactly.

Do the above and wins are a natural progression. Especially given how bad CUSA is.
08-03-2018 03:45 PM
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Owl 69/70/75 Online
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Post: #71
RE: Predictions
I really don't see how the talent level of the last few years, if properly prepared and competently coached, could ever win fewer than 5 games against the collection of creampuffs that are CUSA. What I don't know is whether there has been a significant drop-off in the quality of talent, recruited after 3 straight losing seasons, the last two really dreadful.
08-03-2018 05:46 PM
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Antarius Offline
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Post: #72
RE: Predictions
(08-03-2018 05:46 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I really don't see how the talent level of the last few years, if properly prepared and competently coached, could ever win fewer than 5 games against the collection of creampuffs that are CUSA. What I don't know is whether there has been a significant drop-off in the quality of talent, recruited after 3 straight losing seasons, the last two really dreadful.

I think the talent drop was due to conference. The first several years we were in CUSA 1.0 which, while not the $EC, was a moderately acceptable conference with schools like Tulane, UH, SMU etc. To get somewhat excited about.

Now we play the sunbelt, a collection of directional and sub directional schools with zero commonality and zero overlap. The backslide of the conference (and Rice) made Rice even less appealing to play at and I think recruiting has suffered as a result.

Rice had a few decent years (by CUSA standards) right after we moved with CUSA 1.0 players to the CUSAdbaSunbelt conference. Over time we regressed back to the level of our new conference in terms of performance and recruiting.

Regardless, our talent level now isnt below the rest of CUSA. The whole conference is atrocious. So with decent execution and discipline there should be no reason to ever see the humiliating debacles of years past.
08-03-2018 06:08 PM
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cr11owl Offline
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Post: #73
RE: Predictions
(08-03-2018 05:46 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I really don't see how the talent level of the last few years, if properly prepared and competently coached, could ever win fewer than 5 games against the collection of creampuffs that are CUSA. What I don't know is whether there has been a significant drop-off in the quality of talent, recruited after 3 straight losing seasons, the last two really dreadful.

I don’t know why you think we have more talent than the rest of the CUSA... They consider us a creampuff and they’ve been more correct the last few years.
08-03-2018 06:11 PM
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Owl 69/70/75 Online
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Post: #74
RE: Predictions
(08-03-2018 06:11 PM)cr11owl Wrote:  
(08-03-2018 05:46 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I really don't see how the talent level of the last few years, if properly prepared and competently coached, could ever win fewer than 5 games against the collection of creampuffs that are CUSA. What I don't know is whether there has been a significant drop-off in the quality of talent, recruited after 3 straight losing seasons, the last two really dreadful.
I don’t know why you think we have more talent than the rest of the CUSA... They consider us a creampuff and they’ve been more correct the last few years.

I don't think we have more talent than the rest of CUSA and I have said nothing of the sort. Where did you get that idea anyway?

They consider us a creampuff because we have been the most poorly prepared, undisciplined, and poorly executing football team I have ever seen in the last few years. Bailiff's reputation before Rice was that his teams played hard but sloppy. That's pretty much what happened at Rice, although I'm frankly not that certain how hard the last couple of his teams played.

I expect we are about on a par with the other creampuffs in terms of talent, and my expectations of a coaching staff are that they will have us prepared, disciplined, and executing a proper scheme. If we do those things, we should do no worse than hold our own, which is all I am suggesting.

I read somewhere that 30 players had to stay after practice and run laps as discipline. That might be more than in the 11 years of Bailiff combined. That's a good start. Not that many mistakes, but that much discipline. With that discipline, I would guess that the number of mistakes will go down. Set expectations and enforce them.
(This post was last modified: 08-03-2018 07:26 PM by Owl 69/70/75.)
08-03-2018 06:23 PM
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Ourland Offline
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Post: #75
RE: Predictions
(08-03-2018 06:08 PM)Antarius Wrote:  
(08-03-2018 05:46 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I really don't see how the talent level of the last few years, if properly prepared and competently coached, could ever win fewer than 5 games against the collection of creampuffs that are CUSA. What I don't know is whether there has been a significant drop-off in the quality of talent, recruited after 3 straight losing seasons, the last two really dreadful.

I think the talent drop was due to conference. The first several years we were in CUSA 1.0 which, while not the $EC, was a moderately acceptable conference with schools like Tulane, UH, SMU etc. To get somewhat excited about.

Now we play the sunbelt, a collection of directional and sub directional schools with zero commonality and zero overlap. The backslide of the conference (and Rice) made Rice even less appealing to play at and I think recruiting has suffered as a result.

Rice had a few decent years (by CUSA standards) right after we moved with CUSA 1.0 players to the CUSAdbaSunbelt conference. Over time we regressed back to the level of our new conference in terms of performance and recruiting.

Regardless, our talent level now isnt below the rest of CUSA. The whole conference is atrocious. So with decent execution and discipline there should be no reason to ever see the humiliating debacles of years past.

+1. Now we're getting somewhere. I agree with all this but the last part, and that's only because there are some good coaches in this conference right now. There are some previously awful programs that are trending upward. But absolutely the recruiting has dropped off badly since the SWC. I was watching the Rice-Notre Dame game from 1988. That 0-11 team could have probably beaten most of the teams in CUSA today.
(This post was last modified: 08-03-2018 08:50 PM by Ourland.)
08-03-2018 06:33 PM
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owl at the moon Offline
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Post: #76
Predictions
Fact check:
1. Rice was never in CUSA “1.0”. That version included schools like Louisville and TCU.
Our arrival (and TCU’s departure) was known as “2.0”.
We’re on to 3.0 now (bigger & better!)

2. Two of the last three years there were some 5-7 teams who went to bowls (as provisionally bowl eligible). 6-7 is another provisional category but is placed ahead of the 5-7 bunch. However, last year 3 teams at 6-6 and 6-7 did not get berths.
(This post was last modified: 08-03-2018 08:50 PM by owl at the moon.)
08-03-2018 08:41 PM
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Pan95 Offline
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Post: #77
RE: Predictions
I might update my predictions. I am recently more optimistic that 4 wins are our baseline. My reason for renewed optimism is based upon an interesting quote from Jack Fox during media days. He point blank stated that this is the first time he has watched film relative to his position. That simply astonished me considering that we had an All American in Kyle Martens and an amazing weapon in Chris Boswell.
08-07-2018 07:05 PM
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Post: #78
RE: Predictions
7-6 at worst...

Actual, real, down-hill power football.... a plan... a mentality... it will cause fits in Conference USA.... This prediction is optimistic about the new staff... But moreover, it is a prediction that casts light on just how bad I thought the old staff coached. Without a plan... without competent play-calling... without sound decision making, the Owls had four games they had a chance to win in the 4th quarter in Conference USA....

The Ghost has spoken
08-08-2018 09:56 AM
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westsidewolf1989 Offline
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Post: #79
RE: Predictions
(08-07-2018 07:05 PM)Pan95 Wrote:  I might update my predictions. I am recently more optimistic that 4 wins are our baseline. My reason for renewed optimism is based upon an interesting quote from Jack Fox during media days. He point blank stated that this is the first time he has watched film relative to his position. That simply astonished me considering that we had an All American in Kyle Martens and an amazing weapon in Chris Boswell.

The new coaching staff must have figured out how to turn on the punter-mode on the STRIVR marchine
08-08-2018 10:15 AM
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OptimisticOwl Offline
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Post: #80
RE: Predictions
I'm sticking with four, until I see more.
08-08-2018 10:20 AM
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