I agree with you in principle. Teams have lost the first game and still done very well. One game does not determine a season. My concern though is how the schedule starts. A team loses confidence and motivation with every loss, and if they start piling up, it's going to snowball and the team won't be able to handle the adversity in later games.
Our schedule will start 1-1. Then we go to UGA. That's 1-2, with the only win being against Furman, so it won't help confidence and doesn't really count for anything. Hosting Mississippi State is a dangerous game (last year, they only lost to LSU, Bama, UGA, and Kentucky, and played all but UGA tough). Rogers looks as good as ever. If their confidence is rattled or motivation is down, as it appeared to be part of last night, that could get ugly. Then you go into Knoxville 1-3, and I think UT is a dark horse for the East this year, given UGA having Bobo + having to go there.
After that, the schedule gets a lot easier. I think South Carolina is better than Mizzou, Jacksonville State, and Vandy and can beat Florida and Kentucky if they play well and have confidence. I think A&M is a likely loss (especially there) and Clemson is a pretty sure thing (if they've fixed the offense at all).
I had our ceiling at 8-4, with losses to UGA, Tennessee, A&M, and Clemson. But that depended on building confidence and heading into Tennessee 3-1. We could still go bowling with a win against Mississippi State. But I'm thinking more and more that we're going to exit the tough part of the season 1-4, and I've seen too many times where teams lose all motivation at that point. In that situation, I'm not sure I see enough wins to go bowling.
