(1) the defense continues to stay relatively healthy and be what it is.
(2) dj stays relatively healthy and plays similar to how he did last night. Maybe even runs a little more.
(3) the offensive line and rbs continue to improve just a bit.

If those things happen I think we are healthy favorites for next four games. If we take care of those we go into last three weeks with tons of momentum and as a serious contender for title game. None of those three are unbeatable where we play them.

If all that happens I think we look back on this season and think it took on a different feel the moment Gavin hurdled that dude last week and if the momentum continues has the chance to be something special.

Ewalker80 said:

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(1) the defense continues to stay relatively healthy and be what it is.
(2) dj stays relatively healthy and plays similar to how he did last night. Maybe even runs a little more.
(3) the offensive line and rbs continue to improve just a bit.

If those things happen I think we are healthy favorites for next four games. If we take care of those we go into last three weeks with tons of momentum and as a serious contender for title game. None of those three are unbeatable where we play them.

If all that happens I think we look back on this season and think it took on a different feel the moment Gavin hurdled that dude last week and if the momentum continues has the chance to be something special.

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Everything has to break right for that to happen. I don't think it will. But I see us having a better season than expected, between 8-4 and 9-3.

11-1,10-2. Could win big 12 and make playoffs

Ewalker80 said:

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(1) the defense continues to stay relatively healthy and be what it is.
(2) dj stays relatively healthy and plays similar to how he did last night. Maybe even runs a little more.
(3) the offensive line and rbs continue to improve just a bit.

If those things happen I think we are healthy favorites for next four games. If we take care of those we go into last three weeks with tons of momentum and as a serious contender for title game. None of those three are unbeatable where we play them.

If all that happens I think we look back on this season and think it took on a different feel the moment Gavin hurdled that dude last week and if the momentum continues has the chance to be something special.

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Good Lord....bless your young'n heart

Gotta play all 4 quarters like last night to pull it off. And yeah, gotta do it to everyone on the schedule.

Bearfan1998 said:

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11-1,10-2. Could win big 12 and make playoffs

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Host a CFP game.

IowaBear said:

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I'll take a close W over an l though. I think Art was only like 3-3 against them? But Dave is like 1-5 with multiple ass whoopins. This is a bad TCu team. Worst I can remember from recent times. This is a must win imo. No reason to lose this one

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Not to mention a few of those tcu teams back then were really good. 2014 ranked top 10 right up there with us close to final 4 I believe

In this era of the big 12 with 16 teams in relative parity very rarely will a team make the top two without some serious injury luck going their way. Texas tech last year was an exception because the oil man baby wanted to put all his chips in before the law changed.

IowaBear said:

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I'll take a close W over an l though. I think Art was only like 3-3 against them? But Dave is like 1-5 with multiple ass whoopins. This is a bad TCu team. Worst I can remember from recent times. This is a must win imo. No reason to lose this one

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I don't care about style points at all at this point. Just win, baby.

Good teams win pretty when they play well and find ways to win ugly when they don't. I'll take a one-point win every game from here on out, but especially against TCU.

That said, if we play well, I think we can and should beat TCU by multiple scores. I don't think they can score more than 17 points on our defense. And I think our offense will be the most capable passing game they've faced so far this year. If we can get to 24 or 28 points, I like our chances to win by a couple of scores.

IowaBear said:

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....But Dave is like 1-5 with multiple ass whoopins....

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Just one actually, 2023. The other 4 were by a total of 19 pts (less than 5 pts/game avg). 1 pt loss, 2 pt loss, 6 pt loss, and 10 pt loss during Covid.

That's surprising. Feels like a few have been more one sided. Regardless 1-5 against your big rival needs to change

Willing to predict baylor beats TCU when that prediction thread drops.

I like what I see, but I'm still not sold on better than 6-6. That's not a good season. But I'm more willing to suspect Im wrong.

Down year for Big XII could be good for us.

Bearfan1998 said:

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11-1,10-2. Could win big 12 and make playoffs

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Thats what I'm talking about Bearfan1998, no one on our schedule is unbeatable. Keep the faith! Go Bears! Beat TCU!

Dear God man..you must go through life like the Sword of Damacles is hanging over your head..

No better than 6-6?

Stefano DiMera said:

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Dear God man..you must go through life like the Sword of Damacles is hanging over your head..

No better than 6-6?

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Give me your 3 remaining wins.

I think UCF could be sneaky tough on the road. Also think home against tech and on the road against BYU will be tough. But I think all three of those games are also very winnable.

Utah has looked the best to me using the eye test. I'm also concerned that Oklahoma State could really be rolling (at least their offense) by the end of the year. Thankfully, we don't play either of those teams during the regular season.

The next 3.

And we aint done after that.

Have you looked at the schedule?

I told everyone last week we were beating ASU because the QB was horrible..can you name the next 3 we face?

The TCU QB has been horrendous..and UCF was forced to play the 3rd string Saturday.

Defense travels man..we have a defense now thats getting better each week.

Bearfan1998 said:

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11-1,10-2. Could win big 12 and make playoffs

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I am forever optimistic too and we obviously think alike!

Now that we have a sampling size of 5 games (3 vs P4 teams), I think this team is showing its strengths to be:

Punting
Front seven
WR's (maybe even more reliable than last year)

Areas seeing improvement:
Running backs
QB
Secondary

Jury still out:
Offensive line
Place Kicker

Bear in AL said:

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Now that we have a sampling size of 5 games (3 vs P4 teams), I think this team is showing its strengths to be:

Punting
Front seven
WR's (maybe even more reliable than last year)

Areas seeing improvement:
Running backs
QB
Secondary

Jury still out:
Offensive line
Place Kicker

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Pretty good evaluation IMO.

Based on the watching the replay x2, the secondary will need to tighten its coverage and improve its tackling technic going forward to become a dominant D for four qtrs. When it came down to "stops", they were really efficient but gave ground fairly easily in midfield.

I don't know the quality of ASU's offense and personnel compared to BYU or Tech as I haven't seen these guys play. I watched a little of Houston, TCU an UCF and wasn't impressed. at any rate, the road does get tougher with 2-3 opponents. I do know that Klanderman's hire may save Aranda's job. For now anyway.

If, and that's a big if, we stay Healthy. We continue to play like we did against ASU and the OC/DC stay connected - - that BYU match should be a Game Day type environment. Win there and we run the table on the last 2 games.

I've looked at the schedule. I've even broken it down game by game on numerous threads. I have the next three as winnable games. In other threads, I have always said we needed to go 2-2 or better through this stretch that started with ASU.

I've always had TCU as a coinflip. It's a rivalry game so anything can happen, but I am willing to predict we win that game based on what I saw instead of saying it is a coinflip. Hopefully, we do not come out of the bye week flat.

Kansas I still have as a coin flip. One solid road performance does not have me ready to move off Dave's road record. If we handle TCU with ease and Kansas looks bad against Utah and K St, I would probably predict a win in Kansas. We should learn a lot about them in the next two weeks since their bye was last week.

UCF another road game. Winnable? I would say yes, but again, one impressive road win does not sell me that this is an actual win.

I don't think we go 0-3 through these three, but I am not ready to say we go 3-0 yet either. 2-1 would meet my preseason predictions for this group and give us a winning conference record since we beat ASU.

Timbear said:

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Remember, expectations kill a fan base. So relax with the 10-2, 11-1 talk. For Baylor to go 8-4 this season, after the dismal results recently, would be huge. Dave is different and doing good, until he's not. This team is fighting their guts out and withstanding unreal amounts of criticism. 9-3 is actually possible. All they can do is give it their best shot. Sic'em

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Timbear , hey 11-1 IS ACTUALLY POSSIBLE! Stop with the attitude that Baylor can't win out! This team is believing in themselves and right now they need fans to support them! Go Bears! Beat TCU!

IowaBear said:

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I'll take a close W over an l though. I think Art was only like 3-3 against them? But Dave is like 1-5 with multiple ass whoopins. This is a bad TCu team. Worst I can remember from recent times. This is a must win imo. No reason to lose this one

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Their game against BYU is the only time thus far this season I've watched TCU to any extent and while I agree we should get a W against them, based on that game, I wouldn't call them a "bad team" - if nothing else because of their D. Holding BYU to under 100 yards passing is an accomplishment (even if the weather was somewhat of a factor). In fact, they could've very well won that game if BYU didn't have a QB that is built and runs more like a Cam Skattebou type RB than a typical QB. Agree this is a must win, but as is always the case with TCU. I'll be surprised if it's not a knockdown drag out type of game until the end.

Stefano DiMera said:

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Dear God man..you must go through life like the Sword of Damacles is hanging over your head..

No better than 6-6?

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If we played them tomorrow, we would be favored in the next four games and likely slight underdogs against BYU (maybe -7) and Tech at home (maybe -4). Houston at home would be a very close line --- not sure which way it would break, but I would probably slightly favor us in that game right now .

Predicting we go 2-5 over that stretch is pretty pessimistic for the "optimistic outlook" thread.

It is pessimistic. But it's also not out of the question. We really don't know how good Baylor is because they've played such a bad schedule to date.
They've won at frankly that's what matters. But it's not out of the question for Baylor to lose to any of the remaining opponents. The opposite is also true

Watching male college football fans discuss their teams is like watching the women on The View.
Hysterical one moment. Brazen the next. And then on to being defensive. Back to hysterical. Then back to 'We just might make the CFP.'
And I've been guilty of that. As have a good number of USC fans.
But I think the same goes for all team fans.

At the end of the day though it has so much to do with coaching.

USC has one of the best recruited teams in the country, with a fairly strong NIL. And yet the performance has been lackluster with wins barely being pulled out.

Baylor doesn't have the same level of NIL really and, at one time, was quick to rule themselves out because no way they would ever be able to contend with the big NIL budgets.

Yet, now Baylor fans are suggesting a possible track to the CFB.

Go and figure.

I think the parity in the XII actually gives Baylor, and other teams, an advantage. There's no one team that is dominating every year. So that keeps the pathway open.

Our path is far worse now. Not only do we still have Oregon. We have Washington who can play well with USC, as well as an up and coming ucla team. Add them to a new bank of challenges in the B1G with tOSU, and the potentials of Penn State, Michigan, etc. at any given time and our pathway to the CFB is a lot tougher. Even with a strong NIL and recruited team.

drahthaar said:

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Bear in AL said:

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Now that we have a sampling size of 5 games (3 vs P4 teams), I think this team is showing its strengths to be:

Punting
Front seven
WR's (maybe even more reliable than last year)

Areas seeing improvement:
Running backs
QB
Secondary

Jury still out:
Offensive line
Place Kicker

---

Pretty good evaluation IMO.

Based on the watching the replay x2, the secondary will need to tighten its coverage and improve its tackling technic going forward to become a dominant D for four qtrs. When it came down to "stops", they were really efficient but gave ground fairly easily in midfield.

I don't know the quality of ASU's offense and personnel compared to BYU or Tech as I haven't seen these guys play. I watched a little of Houston, TCU an UCF and wasn't impressed. at any rate, the road does get tougher with 2-3 opponents. I do know that Klanderman's hire may save Aranda's job. For now anyway.

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I think this is going to be a fact of life in Klanderman's defense. It was at Kansas State as well. We're going to go give up some yards between the 20s, but we're also going to stiffen up in the red zone and force a lot of field goals.

We don't have the personnel to be a shutdown defense. We've got good players capable of running our scheme in the linebacking corps and secondary but neither is just loaded with top-tier talent. So we're going to allow some yards every game and rely on scheme, aggressiveness and negative plays to limit points.

So far, the bend-but-don't-break philosophy has worked out pretty darn well. We've played three P4 schools and haven't allowed over 19 points yet this year. I suspect that will continue, too, because we've got a great DC and a scheme our players are capable of executing at a high level.

TrojanMoondoggie said:

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Watching male college football fans discuss their teams is like watching the women on The View.
Hysterical one moment. Brazen the next. And then on to being defensive. Back to hysterical. Then back to 'We just might make the CFP.'
And I've been guilty of that. As have a good number of USC fans.
But I think the same goes for all team fans.

At the end of the day though it has so much to do with coaching.

USC has one of the best recruited teams in the country, with a fairly strong NIL. And yet the performance has been lackluster with wins barely being pulled out.

Baylor doesn't have the same level of NIL really and, at one time, was quick to rule themselves out because no way they would ever be able to contend with the big NIL budgets.

Yet, now Baylor fans are suggesting a possible track to the CFB.

Go and figure.

I think the parity in the XII actually gives Baylor, and other teams, an advantage. There's no one team that is dominating every year. So that keeps the pathway open.

Our path is far worse now. Not only do we still have Oregon. We have Washington who can play well with USC, as well as an up and coming ucla team. Add them to a new bank of challenges in the B1G with tOSU, and the potentials of Penn State, Michigan, etc. at any given time and our pathway to the CFB is a lot tougher. Even with a strong NIL and recruited team.

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I think both USC and Oklahoma will come to really regret leaving their old conferences as many fans at Nebraska already have. Both went from being the big fish in their own ponds to just being another fish in a bigger one, with no natural advantages whatsoever over their new pond mates.

Honestly, outside of Oregon and Texas, I don't think these conference moves to the SEC and Big Ten have been particularly beneficial for any of the schools that have made them. Sure, you get a bigger paycheck, but it comes at the expense of your fans' enjoyment of following your teams as you fall deeper into perennial also-ran status.