We could easily be 7-1 heading into Nov. 2016

[Beaver]

Thanks to another poster I spent some time looking at our 2016 schedule.

Sept. 3 SOUTH ALABAMA -- Win (1-0)
Sept. 10 SOUTH CAROLINA * -- It's at home vs an inferior SEC opponent...we should win (2-0)
Sept. 17 at LSU * -- Not enough talent to win in Baton Rouge again. (2-1)
Sept. 24 at UMass -- Away game for MSU, but almost a home game for Mullen. (3-1)
Oct. 1 Open -- Bye week to prepare for AU
Oct. 8 AUBURN * -- Another home SEC game. Auburn could be better, but they will have 2 or 3 losses coming into this game (4-1).
Oct. 15 at BYU -- Tough road game. However, BYU's schedule is brutal (They could have 5 losses coming in). Oh, and they lost to Mizzou this year. (5-1).
Oct. 22 at Kentucky * -- Another tough road matchup, but haven't seen much out of Stoops so far. MSU is just better. (6-1)
Oct. 29 SAMFORD -- Cupcake heading into a brutal November (7-1)

I don't think I'm being unrealistic here thinking we can win 7 games before November.

Nov. 5 TEXAS A&M * -- Program is in disarray, but they got a pretty nice transfer QB. No clue on this one but at least we get at home them later in the season.
Nov. 12 at Alabama * -- Nope.
Nov. 19 ARKANSAS * -- Got the pigs at home without their veteran QB and their best RB. Toss-up game with advantage to MSU for being in Starkville.
Nov. 26 at Ole Miss * -- Records go out the window in the Egg Bowl, but Ole Miss will have the SEC's best QB assuming Kelly stays.

Now, we could go 0-4 in November, but if we can just win the home games, we'd finish 9-3. Honestly, 8-4 is a pretty reasonable prediction given the way our schedule sets up. Long way to go until September, but I not throwing 2016 in the dumpster like some people already are.

[It_Could_Happen]

I told a friend that exact same thing the other day.

[engie]

Sets up eerily similar to 2012.

But you ate right. 9-3 is not out of the question.

[OdaMaeBrown]

We are probably going to take at least a small step back next year. We are losing a lot. You don't lose the best player in the history of school and not step back a little. Especially when that player was the qb.

But we absolutely should start the season at 7-1 and then things are going to get dicey. We should be TAMU, but we also should have beat them last year. We could lose 3 out of our last 4 and very likely will lose the EB at the end of the season. This will be Mullen's most difficult year to date. He is going to have to coach is ass off to get us more than 8 wins which normally would be acceptable in most years, but if all the wins happen at the beginning of the year and we have a bad losing streak at the end, Mullen seat will be on fire.

I wish we would hire a damn DC already. WTF is going on there? Are we the only team in the nation that doesn't have a DC right now? The dead period ends in a couple of days and i don't know how you hold only any defensive commits when you don't have a DC during the most important stretch of the recrooting season.

[ShotgunDawg]

We will go to a bowl next year

We are not talented enough to compete for the West

BYU, Auburn, Arkansas, Texas A&M, & MAYBE Ole Miss are all toss-up games, with Kentucky as a mild toss-up game. Alabama & LSU are losses.

It's going to be an interesting year with many close games.

[spiritual_machine2005]

Would be nice if the Arky game wasn't sandwiched between Bama and UM.

[BrunswickDawg]

Sets up eerily similar to 2012.

But you ate right. 9-3 is not out of the question.

It all comes back to the O-line. They gel, let Fitz/Staley establish themselves, and get us back to having a run game, and this becomes plausible. Week 2 & 3 are the key tests. We handle USCe and maybe gain the confidence to pull another "no one knows what's about to take this field" in Red Stick???

[OSCAR]

I think 9-3 is the ceiling and 7-5 is the floor. November looks brutal but honestly every one of those teams could take a step back.

[Coach34]

We could also very easily 5-3

[Ifyouonlyknew]

I wish we would hire a damn DC already. WTF is going on there? Are we the only team in the nation that doesn't have a DC right now? The dead period ends in a couple of days and i don't know how you hold only any defensive commits when you don't have a DC during the most important stretch of the recrooting season.

I expect us to have a DC here when our official visitors get here Friday. We're not losing any commits because of this.

[SDDawg]

We will go to a bowl next year

We are not talented enough to compete for the West

BYU, Auburn, Arkansas, Texas A&M, & MAYBE Ole Miss are all toss-up games, with Kentucky as a mild toss-up game. Alabama & LSU are losses.

It's going to be an interesting year with many close games.

Agreed. 6 win floor, 8 win ceiling in my mind. Not that we couldn't win 9 games, I just don't think it's likely with everything we're losing. I'll be ecstatic next year if we win 8 regular season games because 2017 is where things will really line up for us, especially if we get the recruiting class in the door next month that we should get. Gonna be a TON of great talent on the field in '17.

[SDDawg]

I expect us to have a DC here when our official visitors get here Friday. We're not losing any commits because of this.

Related question for you IYOK- you think that picking up Buckley helps us get any commits that aren't currently in the boat. No need to be super specific, just looking for a general feeling on the matter.

[ShotgunDawg]

Agreed. 6 win floor, 8 win ceiling in my mind. Not that we couldn't win 9 games, I just don't think it's likely with everything we're losing. I'll be ecstatic next year if we win 8 regular season games because 2017 is where things will really line up for us, especially if we get the recruiting class in the door next month that we should get. Gonna be a TON of great talent on the field in '17.

I need to see our QB play before making any judgments.

Fitz & Staley are talented, but do they have instincts? Can they get us in the correct play? Can they read a defense? Can they lead the offense?

All these are questions that have not been answered & the answers to these questions will determine how many of those toss-up games we win or lose. At this point, we just don't know.

We don't even know what all Dak did for us.

[Beaver]

We could also very easily 5-3

Yes.. But Mullen wins the games he's supposed to win. We'll be favored in at least 6 of those first 8 games.

[Ifyouonlyknew]

Related question for you IYOK- you think that picking up Buckley helps us get any commits that aren't currently in the boat. No need to be super specific, just looking for a general feeling on the matter.

I think he could help assist on a few guys but the only guy he'd have a legit stamp on would be Dez Fitzpatrick.

[NEMSDOG]

I predict we start 8-0 and nationally ranked top 10. We going to be better than most outside people think. We will beat both LSU and Auburn.

[Really Clark?]

I wish we would hire a damn DC already. WTF is going on there? Are we the only team in the nation that doesn't have a DC right now? The dead period ends in a couple of days and i don't know how you hold only any defensive commits when you don't have a DC during the most important stretch of the recrooting season.

Tucker is still coaching so Georgia doesn't have a DC yet. Tenn just got Shoop even though they were working on getting him for a little while. Oregon, Arizonia, Purdue, and Wisconsin have all been without one longer than we have. It took Auburn nearly a month to get a guy.

[Tbonewannabe]

Next year is basically almost the opposite of this year. We lose our QB but bring back almost everybody else. Basically on offense we lose Dak and Bear. What we return a better Oline from this year than anything we lost. On Defense we lose Calhoun and Redmond (half a year), Ryan Brown (Calvin played better at the end), Chris Jones, and Benni Brown. We also rotate a lot on Defense so the impact isn't as bad as losing Dak.

I will say Fitz looked as good against the crap teams as any QB could look. We don't know what he will do when he really gets in the fire but at this point he is as good or better than Dak was. Dak made HUGE strides in the off season so we will just hope Fitz learned how to do the work from Dak.

My biggest worry is that we will continue to let our best RBs sit on the bench while our Offense struggles to run the ball. Fitz isn't going to be able to make up for the lack of running game like Dak did. He won't need someone like Vick Ballard to help like Relf but he will need more than Concrete shoes and Holloway.

[RougeDawg]

We are probably going to take at least a small step back next year. We are losing a lot. You don't lose the best player in the history of school and not step back a little. Especially when that player was the qb.

But we absolutely should start the season at 7-1 and then things are going to get dicey. We should be TAMU, but we also should have beat them last year. We could lose 3 out of our last 4 and very likely will lose the EB at the end of the season. This will be Mullen's most difficult year to date. He is going to have to coach is ass off to get us more than 8 wins which normally would be acceptable in most years, but if all the wins happen at the beginning of the year and we have a bad losing streak at the end, Mullen seat will be on fire.

I wish we would hire a damn DC already. WTF is going on there? Are we the only team in the nation that doesn't have a DC right now? The dead period ends in a couple of days and i don't know how you hold only any defensive commits when you don't have a DC during the most important stretch of the recrooting season.

I know everyone is in agreement that Dak is the best QB in MSU history. But most of the posters on here think we will completely suck next year because we are losing him. For one, we didn't use Dak in 2015 like we did in 2014. Secondly, while Dak was great his floor was much lower than the 2 QB's we have coming back. Both of our QB's coming back have a much higher ceiling than Dak and based on Mullen's previous QB development, only the ignorant can think that one, if not both, of our QB's will surpass what Dak has accomplished. Everyone acts like we are replacing Dak with a Relf. We are replacing Dak with a less experienced, more talented (at the same point in career) Dak type QB. I do not see is missing much of a beat with whoever takes snaps for us next season and the back loaded schedule only helps them. Our offense and QB has 7-8 weeks to get up to speed and get some nice wins under their belt. I do not expect much of a dropoff and see every game as winnable next year. As long as we fix OLine issues, anything less than 8 wins next year will be disappointing.

[bulldawg28]

We could also very easily 5-3

And we could be 0-8...I have no idea why you think these guys are going to fall off the map now that Dak is gone. This is not the old MSU you grew up on.