Ewalker80 said:
Aberzombie1892 said:
Ewalker80 said:
Aberzombie1892 said:
DanaDane said:
This seems about right. Tech may be too low though.
I thought tech was easily second worst team in conference last year and would bet on Baylor ahead of them. But I agree the key games for Baylor are against texh and the teams projected right above us. K st. Wva. Ok st. Also Texas at home.
The difference for Tech is that they signed the QB that won the PAC12 in 2020 away from Oregon, and he will undoubtedly be starting for them in 2021 and combining him with Cumbie has the potential to develop him further than Oregon did. If Baylor had picked up that QB instead of Tech, then Baylor would be deserving of the middle/upper middle tier since Baylor's defense should be solid.
There is a reason that ESPN's preseason FPI has Tech in its top 25, and it's not because of Big 12 bias.
I'm not an expert on fpi but I don't know how it could weight the Oregon transfer when tech hasn't named him as the starter? He transferred because he was losing a lot of playing time down the stretch, during which time neither he nor the team was playing well, and was benched again during the bowl game. He is a big pocket passer but given tech's overall lack of offensive talent I'm not sure he changes their overall projection. Maybe he comes in and lights the world on fire but I doubt he is more than a slight upgrade over bowman, who also had a pretty good arm. I still think Baylor is the superior team but in any case I see tech as a must win game for Baylor.
In regard to his time at Oregon, Oregon attempted 191 pass attempts in 2020, and he was responsible for 167 of them. It's true that he was replaced in part of the bowl game, but (1) he did definitively win the PAC12 with no qualification, (2) he was rated #15 overall QB in the 2020 college passing efficiency rating, and (3) if we ignore the conference contracts with Bowls and the CFP, that Oregon team had no business playing that ISU team (i.e. with weeks of a prep, there are only a handful of teams that could have beaten that ISU team at that point in the season). Considering how many QBs above him have moved on to the NFL/graduation and the level of competition he is expected to face in the Big 12 in 2021, increased growth for him could easily result in him going in the first round of the 2022 draft (and there are some mainstream projections that are expecting that for him).
Beyond him, there are other positive variables for Tech. Of those, one of the biggest ones is the 10 super seniors for them in 2021 - players who would have had to move on but for the additional year of eligibility due to covid. That number of super seniors leads the Big 12. Yes, 2022 Tech may fall off a cliff because of that, but Wells just needs to survive 2021 before worrying about the following season.
Essentially, ESPN pegs Tech at about 7 regular season wins, which seems about right with that QB, the super seniors, Cumbie, and a few other aspects of their team. They may even win 8 or they may only win 6, but they have the pieces to be in that 6-8 win range for the regular season and that would essentially mean that they are fielding their best team since 2015.