re: 8-4 regular season is the floor... here's why

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The schedule Lack of confidence in staff At least two (A&M and Florida), and possibly 4 (State and Arkansas) of our opponents should be better than they were when we played them a year ago.

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Two of the three you listed can be applied every single season

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I disagree. I think only one of these was applicable last year (lack of confidence in staff). Going into last year, I expected the floor to be 10 wins. The schedule was favorable and outside of Auburn getting Stidham, I didn't feel like anyone would be markedly better than they were in 2016.

This year, wins/losses expectations are lower, IMO, for the following reasons:

1) Confidence in coaching staff has gotten lower
The State, Troy and Notre Dame losses last year should have raised warning flags to even the most optimistic fans (Ree, Brutus and TTT excluded)

2) Schedule is extremely tough on paper
I can't remember going into a season where we have 4 top 10 teams on the schedule where we weren't ranked in or near the top 10 as well. You can say our schedule is always tough, but this is relative. Yeah, our schedule is always tough compared to teams in other conferences, but the 2016 and 2017 schedules weren't particularly daunting when compared to this year's schedule.

3) Texas A&M should be better. Florida should be much better. Mississippi state might be better as they return a lot of guys from the team that beat us 37-7. Arkansas might be better.