Was thinking about our FB schedule today...

[BeerNutts]

Especially our home schedule, and I realize we have a pretty good shot at having a decent record.

Let's assume we beat Samford, Duke, and UConn. We've got Miami, UVA, and VT to deal with. If we win one of those games, we're 4-2 at home. That means we've got to win 2 games on the road to secure a bowl record, and that includes UNC.

If we win 2 of the 3 tough games at home (which I think we can beat UVA and VT), then 2 road wins means 7-4 season, which, IMO, is a successful GT season. Unfortunately, we have some real tough road games in Clemson, Maryland, and UGAg. However, UNC should be a win, and NCSt is very win-able.

So, in closing, if I were to make a prediction for our team this year, a logical decision would be 6 wins with a very good shot at 7. If everything comes together for us (especially LB's and Reggie), 8 isn't out of the question, but if we can't fill all our holes, well, 5 isn't impossible either.

 

[TechSBP]

If we can go 7-4, considering the difficulty of 10 games on our schedule, I'd have to feel pretty good about the direction of our program. 8-3 would be significantly better though. I don't think 6-5 would be bad so long as we don't have any more of those blowouts that we've been forced to live through.

As far as winning 8 games goes, I would add one more caveat to your post---the OL needs to stay healthy. I think you are dead on when you say we will probably win between 5 and 8 games this season not including the bowl game. I'm personally optimistic that we will win seven. I think Chan has finally gotten the importance of getting up for every game across to the players after Tulsa. If we assume that to be true we should definitely beat Samford, UCONN, Duke, UNC. Against teams of similar caliber we should win at least two games (Clemson, NC St, Va Tech, and UVA). I also think we might see an upset against one of our three toughest opponents (Miami, U[sic]GA, and Maryland).

.

 

[YodaBee]

the OL doesn\'t worry me as much as QB and WR

At least with the OL, you know that if they stay healthy they should be very solid.

With QB, we don't know that we're good enough there to win more than 6 games even if our starter is healthy.

With WR, we're banking on a freshman to save our bacon because the other guys haven't shown that they have the talent to compete at a high level in the ACC. In fact, I'd say that right now, we have one of the worst WR corps in the league.

On the brightside the DL should be the best in many, many, many years.

 

[BeerNutts]

Personally, I think the LB\'s is most important...

We saw last year we had a very poor offense, yet we still managed 7 wins. That was because our defense kept us in most games. If our LB's step up, then I'll feel pretty good about our season regardless what our O does.

However, the most important piece on the offense to improve is the QB. Reggie's got to be more consistent in order for us to win those extra games where our Defense is off, and the other team is heavily keying in on our run game.

The other holes to fill are WR, OL, and Kickers, but they are as important as LB and QB IMHO.