Agreed- that is why I said “and winds up with more than 4 wins”- taking it back to the win total of 2019, which is a better direct comparison.
Predict our record in these 4 games: Eastern Illinois, Troy, @ECU, and Vandy
- Thread starter Cocky 45
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Kawalski the only good thing about you is the picture beside your name.
If you're not worried about Troy and ECU, then you're the idiot. Mike Houston has already taken a third of the talent and beat our asz before.....and that was against a proven coaching staff at USC. Lindsey knows what he's doing at Troy, too. Both teams have talent - and it isn't too far behind what we presently have on campus at USC. This year I hope both those programs continue to stay where they've been recently....and we SHOULD beat them.
If we can't win 2-3 games out of this four game stretch......that will not on any previous HC, staff or team. That will be on THIS HC, staff and group of players.
There's no need to place that kind of pressure on Beamer 1st year. Nick Saban himself would have difficulty carving a winning record with what Muschamp has left behind.
Well if Mac Brown has sealed up North Carolina and we are getting zilch from there, why should ECU not suffer the same fate. They will not equal us in personnel, either coaches or players. If we do lose the game it will be be because of poor effort or lack of desire.
Mack and Houston are not going after the same guys, UNC is getting a bunch of 4*s now, with the occasional 3* thrown in there. ECU will get the majority of 2* guys with the occasional 3* thrown in there. Its been that way for ECU for years. As we have seen however, put a very good coach at ECU and they are capable of beating schools that have recruited much better than them over the years. Same holds true for App St......would be interesting to see the average * rating of the team that beat Michigan that year, vs the recruits UM was playing with. Coaching truly makes a huge difference IMHO.
You are all over it. Thing is...Mike Houston is a very good coach. It's taken some time to get the ship turned a little at ECU...but based on track record you have to expect this year to be a winning season for them. That is what scares me about this game for USC.
ECU recruits the same/similar guys as App State (and I don't know about class rank...but individually just knowing who has gone there recently ECU typically lands the better "athletes/players" the last decade) but ASU's coaching staff has definitely been better in that same decade timeframe. Having Ted Roof as your DC....you can see how a group like ASU and beat us at home two years ago. I think Blake Harrell is a really good up and coming DC - just IMO...but we will see.
ECU aren't world beaters, and they've looked like crap the last couple years BUT they have pieces in place to surprise so I hope our staff and players are ready for that.
He won't be on the hot seat this year or next year. Year #3 is when it starts getting warm if he hasn't won enough games. I think he will win 4-5 games this year and increase that win total each year with 7-8 wins in year #3. (Roughly equivalent to Spurrier's trajectory.)
I'm not saying we can't lose any of those games but we will be expected to win all of those games. We will be the more talented team when we step on the field with all of them.
You seem to forget how many players were not available by the end of the season every year under Muschamp, you seem to think there is any valid reason for a team to have 2 wins in the same season it put 5 people in the NFL, it had to be coaching, no other explanation. If we revert to average on the injury front and for team performance for the level of talent we accumulated, we should more than handle all those teams. Our record last year indicates that the game passed Muschamp defensively, he couldn't create cohesion, the roster was managed poorly and something he did kept getting players hurt.
We are the equivalent of a battered spouse as a fan base. Eastern Illinois, ECU, and Troy are bad non-power 5 teams. South Carolina is more talented than them at every position group, in some cases miles more talented. This is an SEC school that should have an elite coaching staff, relative to almost every other program in the country. If they drop one of these games it should be a major red flag and trigger inquiries of this staff’s ability to prepare and manage a game.
I know this comes with the caveat that we were awful the past couple of years (albeit, at a much higher level of competition), but ECU very much IS a slouch team. In the last 5 seasons, they have recorded four 3-win seasons and one 4-win season. Unless they've undergone some remarkable turnaround since last year, they are a very bad team.
I know they have historically been alright when we played them and have often given us fits, but they are a bad team and have been for the past 6 seasons.
They are actually in their worst stretch of football, record-wise, that I can see going back to 30s.
It doesn't mean we'll win...we are USC after all...but we should win and we should expect to win. If we can't beat an AAC team that has 16 total wins in the past 5 seasons, then we should be on red alert and things are here worse than even the biggest pessimist could imagine.
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Agree...the last two years. I'm just saying that the HC has a track record...and it would be a major surprise to see his program have a losing season this year.
Some G5 teams of recent years would stomp mudholes in any USC team, outside of 10-13’, in school history. Pretty bad take here. We’ve been lucky to play them when they were down. Outside of that app state team you mentioned which was pretty damn good.
There is plenty left to explain. A large part of the problem last year was that we were taking 4-5 lower level collegiate program players, plugging them into starting positions and expecting to win vs. SEC competition. Those guys vs. legit (first string) competition.....haven't fared so well.
ECU and Troy have plenty of better players on their rosters than the transfer guys that we've put on the field from these lesser programs that many of our fans have touted to be so good. The point is....yes ECU and Troy haven't been good the last 2 years (for sure) ....but neither have we. Those programs are in their 3rd year of a new HC...and you can bet some adjustments in the correct direction have been made. I just won't be surprised if they compete closely with us. H$ll - besides the occassional 4 star we might land.... most of OUR recruits list ECU, App, Troy, etc along with schools considered when they decisioned.
We have a bigger stadium, more support, play in a tougher conference, etc- all true obviously. But, 20 and 21 year olds looking to make a name for themselves on what will likely be their biggest stage all year is what our team should be guarding against. Better prepare like it's Bama...and bring it.
Let's do that. Your blind faith in a HC, staff and group of players to go 4-0 vs. teams with a pulse is inspiring. I hope you're right. Maybe the team with a 4 year starter at qb averaging over 400 yards and 30 PPG is a bum, and we steamroll them.
Obviously this SHOULD be the stretch we get 4 wins out of the schedule.
This is just silly. G5 teams have a winning percentage of like 20% against Power 5 schools.
And South Carolina is playing against three G5 teams that aren’t very good. ECU has been terrible lately. Eastern Illinois won just two games combined the past two seasons. And Troy is coming off back to back losing seasons.
Even when the G5 teams are good, like App State, a South Carolina program that was in complete shambles in 2019 still was just one embarrassingly bad throw away from winning that game.
I don’t care what your situation is or where you are in some rebuilding cycle, if you’re an SEC staff dropping regular season games to G5 schools— particularly bad G5 schools— you need to be asked some serious questions. I don’t care if it’s your first game or 30th game.
Yes, that was a historically good (for them) App State team. We were a train wreck in every facet of the game, and it was still competitive.
Most of the time, any average or better P5 team would easily defeat the best G5 has to offer.
Coastal finished 12th last year but would have lost handily to any P5 team ranked below them in the top 25, and quite a few outside the top 25.
Fair enough. I just think the outcome by the end of the season will be better than you think. Sure, we might lose one of those games but if we progress through the season and win 4-5 then I'll be satisfied. However, if we go 2-10 and look terrible all the way through the season because this staff can't put together a decent game plan then I might change my mind about that seat in December.
BTW, if that happens, RT will be gone by Christmas.
On paper there's no reason we should lose any of these games. As dysfunctional as we are, we are better across the board than each of these teams. There's no objective reason to predict a loss to any of these teams. The only reason to predict a loss is pessimism.
Wrong...those teams wouldn't have beat us during Spurrier's better years. CF, the best G5 during that time tried...lost.
Good points about Boise. They were fun to watch back then.
But the fact remains that Spurrier never lost those games. We were also UCF's only loss that year. IIRC, that game was only that close at the end because Mike Davis fumbled and led to a a TD for them instead of us. If he doesn't fumble, we go on to a double digit win.
I think we go 4-0 but the game with ECU does concern me since it is in Greenville, NC.
I'm convinced that a bunch of those young Clemson social media kids that work for Dabo have signed up here and their job is just to create hate and discontent.
The best of those best Boise St teams might have beaten the Spurrier Gamecocks but on a whole I think those SC teams would have gotten the better of them, especially the 2010, 2011 and 2012 teams, especially with an uninjured Marcus Lattimore. We would have dominated the LOS. BS had a pretty offense but I would have loved to have seen Clowney barreling down on Kellen Moore.
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