Prior to the season I expected us to win between 5 and 8 games, settling on 7. I thought we would be better than last year but so too would be our schedule. Interestingly, I expected the first half of the year to be slightly tougher than the second half. Hopefully it will turn out that way.
But, I thought FIU, Houston, and Army would be better than they have shown and UCONN wouldn’t be as bad as they’ve proven to be. I had no expectations about Missouri State and Auburn is probably better than I anticipated. Still, 5-1 against that schedule and the impressive way we have moved the ball against all but Auburn is very encouraging. But, to be fair, we haven’t beaten a team with a winning record. The teams we have defeated have a combined 10-19 record. And four of our first six games were at home.
Looking forward to the next six, we’ll only play two at home and the combined record of our opponents thus far is 27-9, with only Tulsa sporting a non-winning record. Except for UCF, all the other teams, including Tulsa, have been better than I expected and playing on the road at places like Navy is always a challenge.
But, we don’t play all six at once, we play them one at a time. Memphis is first up and, like us, they have a 5-1 record though they have beaten one team with a winning record, Navy at home. Their wins are against teams with a combined 14-16 record, so they aren’t tearing up really good teams. They’re averaging about 38 points a game and allowing about 21, though a 31 point win against Southern and a 36 point victory over South Alabama, tend to skew their numbers, much like our wins against FIU, Missouri State, and UCONN skew ours.
We beat them last year and we’re better this year. Yes, we’ve got to play them on the road and that is a disadvantage. But, to be honest, we haven’t had a great home field advantage, crowd-wise, in a long time. And Memphis’s home-field advantage can’t compare to Army’s a couple of weeks back. Sensing the betting public’s view, odds makers have us as an underdog (4.5 pts last I saw), so this week’s win will be a mild upset. After that, we can focus on the next game.
Roll Wave!!
But, I thought FIU, Houston, and Army would be better than they have shown and UCONN wouldn’t be as bad as they’ve proven to be. I had no expectations about Missouri State and Auburn is probably better than I anticipated. Still, 5-1 against that schedule and the impressive way we have moved the ball against all but Auburn is very encouraging. But, to be fair, we haven’t beaten a team with a winning record. The teams we have defeated have a combined 10-19 record. And four of our first six games were at home.
Looking forward to the next six, we’ll only play two at home and the combined record of our opponents thus far is 27-9, with only Tulsa sporting a non-winning record. Except for UCF, all the other teams, including Tulsa, have been better than I expected and playing on the road at places like Navy is always a challenge.
But, we don’t play all six at once, we play them one at a time. Memphis is first up and, like us, they have a 5-1 record though they have beaten one team with a winning record, Navy at home. Their wins are against teams with a combined 14-16 record, so they aren’t tearing up really good teams. They’re averaging about 38 points a game and allowing about 21, though a 31 point win against Southern and a 36 point victory over South Alabama, tend to skew their numbers, much like our wins against FIU, Missouri State, and UCONN skew ours.
We beat them last year and we’re better this year. Yes, we’ve got to play them on the road and that is a disadvantage. But, to be honest, we haven’t had a great home field advantage, crowd-wise, in a long time. And Memphis’s home-field advantage can’t compare to Army’s a couple of weeks back. Sensing the betting public’s view, odds makers have us as an underdog (4.5 pts last I saw), so this week’s win will be a mild upset. After that, we can focus on the next game.
Roll Wave!!