With Maine and Akron. I don’t think Marrone will allow his boys to lose to Akron. And who knows, maybe steal a game from one of the home Big 10 matchups.

…then our record might not be bad this year. I know nothing about Minnesota, so we’ll leave that one aside. We can beat Maine and Akron (although I was at the Akron game this year, and know that nothing is a sure thing). Maybe we can upset Northwestern, but it’s unlikely. So let’s assume we’re 2-3 going into Big East play (because obviously Penn State will destroy us in Happy Valley). West Virginia and Cincy at home should be interesting – both obviously suffering from huge losses in personnel (Cincy the whole team, and WVU with Pat White, specifically), and maybe we can steal one at Louisville (again) and/or UConn. That’s five or six wins, without stretching the imagination too greatly. I would be very happy with that kind of progress in year one.

Now before I get killed – and I know we are WAY too early to making predictions – I just want to say that I’m basing these projections on the Kotite Principle (a man who scarred me so badly I decided to name my online handles after the guy). Namely, the worst coach in the history of your team achieved “x,” so obviously even a decent coach should be able to improve upon “x” in his first year.

Greg Robinson, the worst college coach I’ve ever seen, managed 3 wins with that team last year, and with the exception of Curtis Brinkley and Pat Shadle, no one of note is not coming back (and with Mike Williams returning, the offense is automatically a little better through the air). The Big East looks like it’s fairly ripe right now, and if Marrone is able to display some competency in year one, I think that five wins is realistic. Six wins or more would be phenomenal.

Thoughts?

I wonder what Vegas will put the over/under at for wins for Syracuse this season. If its below 4 (ie 3.5 wins) then I’m all for taking the over. If its above 4.5 wins, then I guess I take the under?

This next season will be a total crapshoot, I think. So hard to make anything of it. I mean the NW’ern game – SU should be favored, right? It is at the Dome, too. And the Minny game to start the season? That’s likely one of those televised-on-ESPN-noon-on-Labor-Day-weekend games where SU might be able to sneak up on the Gophers….right? If they steal just one win from the Big Ten slate of games and then win the other OOC games, then all they need to do is win 3 BE conf. games to become bowl eligible.

Tremendously high hopes….I think ~ 5 wins and the team actually playing competitively in the losses will be more along the lines of reality.