4) The other big reason I'm adjusting my expectations for Mizzou? The schedule.
There was talk all offseason about Mizzou having a "manageable SEC schedule." I know you guys got tired of hearing it and started to get offended by it. Again, nobody is saying Missouri has an easy schedule. It's tougher than the ACC and Big 12 schedules. Probably a lot of the Big Ten schedules. But Missouri isn't in those leagues. It's in the SEC. And in terms of the SEC, it's an easy schedule.
Here's the thing: The schedule isn't as tough as I thought it was a month ago.
Murray State, Buffalo and UMASS (lost 38-3 to Buffalo on Saturday) don't count. Those are and always were wins.
Boston College is better than we thought. South Carolina is too. Arkansas probably is.
Oklahoma, Mississippi State, Auburn and Texas A&M are worse than I expected them to be. Or at least they have been through three weeks.
Alabama is what I expected. Vanderbilt is about that too. A week ago, most would have said Vandy was better than anticipated, but then it lost to a bad Georgia State team, allowing the Panthers to go seven plays in less than a minute for the game-winning touchdown. So Vandy's ceiling may be higher than we thought, but the floor is probably lower.
That's four teams that aren't as good as I thought they'd be and three that are a little better. Missouri has already beaten one of those three. I think Mizzou's schedule looks easier than it did at the start of the season. Not by leaps and bounds. The difference may be minor. But it's still a difference. I would now pick Missouri to win 11 games. At the beginning of the year, I said winning less than ten games couldn't be considered a bad season. And it still probably can't. But honestly, if Missouri doesn't go at least 10-2 with this schedule, they've left something on the table. I'm not saying OU, A&M or South Carolina are easy games. But those are the only three on the schedule I look at and give Mizzou less than about a 75% chance of winning outside of Alabama. So even if you lose one of them, it would take a pretty substantial upset in a game you should absolutely win not to get to ten. I think Missouri is better than SC and A&M and it gets OU at home.
There are two ways this team wins fewer than ten: You lose two of the three "swing" game. Or you lose at least one game that you absolutely shouldn't lose. If either of those things happen, it's a disappointment. Again, I'm not going to tell you 9-3 is a failure...but 9-3 will absolutely leave me thinking that Mizzou missed a gigantic opportunity.