The defense will not be Sirmon bad.
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I know you are a coach and have more insight than I ever will on football, but I think you are missing a key point. Leach is here, any thoughts of way the game has been played for all our lives is gone. So many do not believe in this spread 'em out system and it's methodology or they say our defense stinks. Leach just wins, even vs better talented teams. This year will be no different. I say that State's WR group will have the best year of any group in the SEC and everyone will say, dang those guys were good all along and it's only going to get better with more talent coming. Leach knows how to get guys the ball and make teams defend the entire field.
This is not only not your father's Mississippi State, this won't resemble what we think of as our Mississippi State. They win at least 5 games and maybe 7 with a future that is crazy bright. Just watch...
I am concerned what practicing vs passing all day long everyday does to a defense but hey... They gotta stop us now too.
Do they? I am not expecting that. I'm hoping for that, but I don't think in the past Leach has turned out miraculous changes in the offense in year one. We certainly have more talent than he usually has to work with, but the defenses we play will be better week in and week out than Leach has ever had to deal with. And even though we could be very strong at QB, OL, and RB, we are particularly weak at WR. I think we'd be better off if our position groups were more balanced.
People that have watched practice expect us to be a solid offensive football team. Our receivers are not horrible. A quarterback that can hit the broad side of a barn and an offense that isn’t as complicated as trigonometry will help Mississippi raised players a lot.
Just a quick refresher for anyone who's interested on undergrad probability.
The chance for us to go 5-0 in that stretch would be 0.95*0.95*0.80*0.70*0.65=32.85%.
So, it's more likely that we don't go 5-0 in that stretch than we do. I think calling it a "good chance" is a bit of a stretch.
However, the probability of us winning at least 4 games in that stretch with the possibility of a loss to Kentucky would be 32.85%+0.95*0.95*0.80*0.70*(1-0.65)=32.85%+17.69%=50.54% (a coin flip)
We're going to get blown up up front on defense by most of the teams we play. They'll play ball control to keep our offense on the sidelines. I know people are high on our DL, but I worry about the front 7. If we can't stop the run against SEC teams, that's a bad recipe. I think the over/under W/L should be 4.5. The one thing that gives me hope for 5 or 6 wins is that Leach is much more likely to upset some better teams with his system. Mullen rarely lost to worse teams, but also rarely upset better teams. Leach will do both more often. I just hope our fan base doesn't freak when we drop a game or two we should've won. This is going to take 2-3 years.
Basically, it’s a complete unknown on this year until we play. Could we win 6? Sure. Could we win 3? Also just as possible. We simply don’t know, and that’s why I love this board because many bring up good points on both sides of the optimist/pessimist side of the coin. I think 4-6 is my prediction.
For better or worse, this is where I think Arnett's scheme will play a big role this season.
In the Joe Lee system, your band was playing or the other team's band was playing & I see an similar outcome here.
You say teams will play ball control vs us but I'm not sure Arnett's scheme is condusive to the other team playing ball control. This isn't the Mullen bend but don't break style that runs the clock down.
This is blitzing from different places & taking chances, which is the right style with Leach's offense, because either way it should get the ball back to the offense fairly quickly.
Teams may try to run the ball down our throats, but with all the run blitzing we'll be doing, I think you're going to see us give up a good many explosive runs but also create a lot of tackles behind the LOS. Both of which aren't conducive to milking the clock