1) Congratulations. You made it through another offseason. It has been 191 days since the Rams beat the Bengals in the last football game that mattered. It has been 225 days since Georgia beat Alabama in the last college football game that mattered. You only have to wait five more days. Week zero officially kicks off with Austin Peay vs Western Kentucky on Saturday at 11 am. I'm sure some of you diehards will be watching that game. I think I'll be capable of holding off another half hour and checking out Nebraska and Northwestern at 11:30. I'll keep this in mind as I watch that game.
Ummm, who's this we you speak of, coach Frost?
2) While it may have been 225 days since that national championship game, it does not appear anything has really changed. Bill Connelly of ESPN came out with his SP+ ratings this week. Alabama is No. 1 and Georgia is No. 2. Shocking, I know. The next three in the rankings, the big underdogs with a chance to throw a wrench in the whole season, are Ohio State, Oklahoma and Clemson. Perennially disadvantaged programs Michigan, Notre Dame and Texas A&M round out the top eight. BIll's rankings aren't perfect, though. Michigan was ranked 17th in the preseason and made the playoff. Cincinnati was 19th. So it is possible that we could be surprised. It's just unlikely.
3) Obviously you're more interested in Missouri than the national stuff, so let's talk about that. We'll start off by blending the two. Here's something I found really interesting in looking at the SP+ rankings. Missouri plays four of the top 14 teams in the preseason rankings (No. 2 Georgia, No. 10. Tennessee, No. 11 Kentucky and No. 14 Arkansas). But it also plays three of the 25 worst teams in the country (No. 108 Vanderbilt, No. 115 Louisiana Tech and No. 131--that's last--New Mexico State). Plus an FCS team. Missouri's remaining opponents come in at 21 (Auburn), 26 (Florida), 33 (Kansas State) and 37 (South Carolina). So, yes, it's a tough schedule. It could be tougher. Missouri basically has four gift wins. The record will be determined in the other eight games (or if, God forbid they lose one of those four, go ahead and cancel the rest of them).
4) The general consensus nationally is that Missouri will win five or six games (believe the Vegas over/under is 5.5, SP+ pegs them at 5.9, I've seen predictions as low as 4-8). I think it is likely Missouri will be an underdog in eight games. Depending on how things unfold, the Tigers could be favored at South Carolina, but it would be a mild surprise. As we said above, you've got four wins going into the season if the train doesn't get badly derailed. So those 4-8 predictions pick Missouri to have a worst-case scenario season. Those who take the under of 5.5 would be picking something just slightly above the worst-case scenario. What we seem to forget every offseason is that we almost never get the best-case or the worst-case out of a college football team. What we can't account for in the preseason is days like Tennessee last year where simply everything goes wrong. Or days like Florida last year where the Gators clearly had more talent but were in complete chaos and had a very low give a damn factor by the time they came to Columbia. In college sports--much more often than the pros--the best team doesn't always win. Because the best team doesn't always play its best and sometimes the worse team fights above its weight.
My point is this: 4-8 seems very unlikely. But 11-1 isn't happening either. Because while Missouri could be good enough on the right day to beat anybody on its schedule except for Georgia, the chances of Missouri being good enough on every day to beat Tennessee and Kentucky and Florida and Auburn and South Carolina and Kansas State and Arkansas are probably somewhere in the neighborhood of a fraction of 1%. If Missouri played its best game in all seven of those games, it could potentially go 7-0 (as long as the opponent didn't also play its best game). That's not going to happen. All these preseason predictions are based on "if both teams play to their potential every single game, this is what happens." The problem is, that basically never happens in college football. It's why it's so entertaining.
Auburn last year needed a miracle to beat FCS Jacksonville State on September 25th. Less than a month later, it ran off back-to-back wins over ranked teams in Arkansas and Ole Miss. Then it lost to a pretty bad South Carolina team. And the very next week took Alabama to four overtimes and should have won the game. We all spend eight months making predictions and acting like we know what is going to happen and by about September 15th, it's all going to be complete garbage.
So given all that, I'm no statistical wizard (and I'm not actually even attempting to use any statistics in doing this), but if we approach Missouri's season as 4-1 to start with seven games that could theoretically be called swing games, here are what I believe the most likely records to be, in order:
6-6
7-5
5-7
8-4
9-3
10-2
11-1
This team isn't winning ten games. The absolute ceiling to me, if Missouri maxes out what it is capable of and plays as close to a perfect season as I believe a team of its caliber is capable of playing, is 9-3. But I believe 5 wins is more likely than 8. If we were doing percentages on the above records, I'd say Mizzou probably has a better than 50% chance to finish either 6-6 or 7-5. And as I explained above, this paragraph isn't worth the 55 seconds it took me to type it.
5) So let's play the scenario game here. What has to happen for Missouri to be at its best case or its worst case? Let's start with the best case because you all know I'm a super optimistic, not at all cynical, person. If all of the following things happen, Missouri optimizes its chances of being an eight or nine win team:
*Brady Cook doesn't just give Missouri better quarterback play than last year, he gives it very good quarterback play.
*The offensive line is improved.
*You get 2020 Trajan Jeffcoat, 2021 Isaiah McGuire and either DJ Coleman or Tyrone Hopper is a really good third edge rusher.
*Ty'Ron Hopper is the player he was against Missouri last year more than the player he was in most of the other 11 games.
*Eli Drinkwitz pushes all the right buttons and gives the Tigers at least one win on strategy.
*At least one--and probably two--of Tennessee, Kentucky and Arkansas are worse than we expect.
Ummm, who's this we you speak of, coach Frost?
2) While it may have been 225 days since that national championship game, it does not appear anything has really changed. Bill Connelly of ESPN came out with his SP+ ratings this week. Alabama is No. 1 and Georgia is No. 2. Shocking, I know. The next three in the rankings, the big underdogs with a chance to throw a wrench in the whole season, are Ohio State, Oklahoma and Clemson. Perennially disadvantaged programs Michigan, Notre Dame and Texas A&M round out the top eight. BIll's rankings aren't perfect, though. Michigan was ranked 17th in the preseason and made the playoff. Cincinnati was 19th. So it is possible that we could be surprised. It's just unlikely.
3) Obviously you're more interested in Missouri than the national stuff, so let's talk about that. We'll start off by blending the two. Here's something I found really interesting in looking at the SP+ rankings. Missouri plays four of the top 14 teams in the preseason rankings (No. 2 Georgia, No. 10. Tennessee, No. 11 Kentucky and No. 14 Arkansas). But it also plays three of the 25 worst teams in the country (No. 108 Vanderbilt, No. 115 Louisiana Tech and No. 131--that's last--New Mexico State). Plus an FCS team. Missouri's remaining opponents come in at 21 (Auburn), 26 (Florida), 33 (Kansas State) and 37 (South Carolina). So, yes, it's a tough schedule. It could be tougher. Missouri basically has four gift wins. The record will be determined in the other eight games (or if, God forbid they lose one of those four, go ahead and cancel the rest of them).
4) The general consensus nationally is that Missouri will win five or six games (believe the Vegas over/under is 5.5, SP+ pegs them at 5.9, I've seen predictions as low as 4-8). I think it is likely Missouri will be an underdog in eight games. Depending on how things unfold, the Tigers could be favored at South Carolina, but it would be a mild surprise. As we said above, you've got four wins going into the season if the train doesn't get badly derailed. So those 4-8 predictions pick Missouri to have a worst-case scenario season. Those who take the under of 5.5 would be picking something just slightly above the worst-case scenario. What we seem to forget every offseason is that we almost never get the best-case or the worst-case out of a college football team. What we can't account for in the preseason is days like Tennessee last year where simply everything goes wrong. Or days like Florida last year where the Gators clearly had more talent but were in complete chaos and had a very low give a damn factor by the time they came to Columbia. In college sports--much more often than the pros--the best team doesn't always win. Because the best team doesn't always play its best and sometimes the worse team fights above its weight.
My point is this: 4-8 seems very unlikely. But 11-1 isn't happening either. Because while Missouri could be good enough on the right day to beat anybody on its schedule except for Georgia, the chances of Missouri being good enough on every day to beat Tennessee and Kentucky and Florida and Auburn and South Carolina and Kansas State and Arkansas are probably somewhere in the neighborhood of a fraction of 1%. If Missouri played its best game in all seven of those games, it could potentially go 7-0 (as long as the opponent didn't also play its best game). That's not going to happen. All these preseason predictions are based on "if both teams play to their potential every single game, this is what happens." The problem is, that basically never happens in college football. It's why it's so entertaining.
Auburn last year needed a miracle to beat FCS Jacksonville State on September 25th. Less than a month later, it ran off back-to-back wins over ranked teams in Arkansas and Ole Miss. Then it lost to a pretty bad South Carolina team. And the very next week took Alabama to four overtimes and should have won the game. We all spend eight months making predictions and acting like we know what is going to happen and by about September 15th, it's all going to be complete garbage.
So given all that, I'm no statistical wizard (and I'm not actually even attempting to use any statistics in doing this), but if we approach Missouri's season as 4-1 to start with seven games that could theoretically be called swing games, here are what I believe the most likely records to be, in order:
6-6
7-5
5-7
8-4
9-3
10-2
11-1
This team isn't winning ten games. The absolute ceiling to me, if Missouri maxes out what it is capable of and plays as close to a perfect season as I believe a team of its caliber is capable of playing, is 9-3. But I believe 5 wins is more likely than 8. If we were doing percentages on the above records, I'd say Mizzou probably has a better than 50% chance to finish either 6-6 or 7-5. And as I explained above, this paragraph isn't worth the 55 seconds it took me to type it.
5) So let's play the scenario game here. What has to happen for Missouri to be at its best case or its worst case? Let's start with the best case because you all know I'm a super optimistic, not at all cynical, person. If all of the following things happen, Missouri optimizes its chances of being an eight or nine win team:
*Brady Cook doesn't just give Missouri better quarterback play than last year, he gives it very good quarterback play.
*The offensive line is improved.
*You get 2020 Trajan Jeffcoat, 2021 Isaiah McGuire and either DJ Coleman or Tyrone Hopper is a really good third edge rusher.
*Ty'Ron Hopper is the player he was against Missouri last year more than the player he was in most of the other 11 games.
*Eli Drinkwitz pushes all the right buttons and gives the Tigers at least one win on strategy.
*At least one--and probably two--of Tennessee, Kentucky and Arkansas are worse than we expect.
