Spaulding Roundup: Early Thoughts On Expectations For 2009 Season

Using Scouts rankings, I averaged out the rankings over a 3 and 5 year period for the top 6 teams in the conference ( I probably sould have included AZ and Furd, but I was lazy) I think based on talent anywhere from 3-7th in conference would be in the realm of what is possible this year. The good news is that as these older classes roll off and our current talent matures, we will even out the talent gap and should be able to realisticly compete for the conference title by 2010.

SUC has an average recruiting class ranked number 3 in the nation for the 05-07 recruiting class, KAL is 15th, UCLA 27th, Oregon 30th, ASU 37th and OSU 44th.

When you look at 05-09, the numbers change, with SUC at 5, UCLA at 19, Kal at 22, Oregon at 28, ASU at 33, and OSU at 48

This shows us a couple of things:

1) Mike Riley is a hell of a coach to get where he does every year with his talent.

2) This year is key. If we can finish number 3, and somehow get another top 10 recruiting class, we will have set the foundation for a very good run for the next couple of years. The only reason I am really concerned about how we finish this year is its effect on recruiting to set us up for future years.

My 2010 pac 10 predicition:

1) Kal
2) SUC ( I think SUCs poor coaching and off the field drama catches up with them)
3) OSU
4) UCLA
5) Oregon
6) ASU
7) ZONA
8) Washington
9) Stanford
10) WSU

After a few years of reading nearly everything on this site and posting lengthy arguments about this topic, I still do not know the difference between expectations and predictions. So I’m not going to rehash the arguments between Nestor and me from last year (as fun as they were).

Whether you call them expectations or predictions, there’s really no way to think of them without considering where we were last year. Last year, we were 4-8, which obviously ws not very good. How bad? Of the 65 teams in the 6 major conferences, we were one of 6 teams to finish with a 4-8 record. Six other teams were worse than 4-8, including 2 of the teams we beat—WSU and UW, who were probably the two worst teams of these 65 big conference teams.

So, our record places us in the bottom 20%—outside the ball curve, but our record may have even overstated how good we really were because we had those 2 games against the dregs of division 1 fromthe Apple State (teams that beat no other BCS division school except when they played each other). We beat WSU and UW soundly, but our other two wins required last minute touchdowns for us to win by a field goal at home against 5-7 teams.

Of our 8 losses, only two were competitive games: Fresno State (31-36) and Oregon (24-31 in what may have been our best game of the season and surely was our best road game). The other 6 losses were by a minimum of 21 points (that’s right 3 TDs!). So the reality is that we could improve quite a bit and still have trouble eliminating a 3-TD gap between us and the 6 teams that blew us out. Put another way, if we have a 2 TD improvement, we still would lose these 6 games.

Of course, you don’t play everyone in the same place as the past year, but that doesn’t necessarily help us this year. Absent tremendous improvement of their own, we should still be better than WSU and UW on any field and much better than SDSU at home. So those are 3 games we should win. Kansas State is not very good and lost its QB. Playing them at home gives us a slight edge, so it’s a game that we could win. So that’s 2 wins from last year and 2 new games that together give us 4 games that are in the probably win category.

However, our two narrow wins from last year are now road games (at Stanford and at Tennessee) and against teams who should also be improved. Suffice it to say that we will have to be much improved to beat these two teams on the road. These are more likely than not going to be losses in 2009.

Of the aforementioned 5 blowout losses (taking out BYU, who’s not on the schedule), 3 were at home (OSU, USC and Arizona) and will be road games in 2009. To lose by 21+ at home and then go on the road next year and win would require massive improvement, which is unlikely. Two others were onthe road—ASU and Cal. Cal is going to be tough to beat but not entirely out of the question—the home team has won this game every year of the new milennium. Still, I’d call this more likely than not a loss, even if we are greatly improved. ASU is a different story because the 25 point loss was punctuated by ASU’s 4 defensive TDs. The teams were actually closely matched other than at QB. I’d call this a likely win.

That leaves Oregon, which was a close game, but it was their QB’s 2nd start. Since that game, he went on a tear, as the Ducks put up 50+ points in 3 of their last 6 games and 35+ in 5 of 6. I’d call this more than likely a loss.

So, add it all up, and you have a 5-7 record. To reiterate, we could be a much improved team and still go 5-7. To put it into a bell-curve perspective, 10 of the 65 teams went 5-7 last year, so 5-7 would take us form solidly within the bottom 20% to the bottom 33 1/3% (22 of 65). If we steal a 6th win, we would go to a bowl game and join another 8 teams who went 6-7 or 7-6 and would put us right on the edge of being in the top 50%.

Okay, that’s my information dump. I think I have several points: (1): Improving from 4-8 to 6-6 requires a pretty large leap—from being worse than 4 of 5 schools to being average. (2) Record doesn’t show the whole story—we may have actually been worse than the average 4-8 team because we lost 6 games by at least 3 TDs. (3) The schedule may be easier in the sense that we don’t have BYU and have Oregon, Cal and ASU at home, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into more winnable games for us.

I think I’ve just predicted that we’ll go 5-7. Hopefully, we’ll steal an unlikely win and get into a bowl. What do I expect? Improvement. Not the kind that can necessarily be measured in wins and losses (though that type of improvement would be terrific to watch), but the kind of improvement on a micro level that will lead to the macro-level improvement by 2010. These simple things constitute my expectations for the season:

(1) An offensive line that can protect well enough to allow occasional 5-step drops and gives the QB a chance on most plays to get to his 3rd option. Fewer sacks and occasional holes for the running game. Also, I’d like to see some continuity develop on the line as the season progresses so that by the end of the year, we have 5 guys in place who will be back in 2010 and expected to start then as part of a solid to good line.

(2) A running back (or tandem) with consistent hole hitting and occasional break away ability. Last year, our longest run from scrimmage was 44 yards. I don’t have the stats for this, but we had a high percentage of tackles for losses. We need the o-line to open up holes, but we need a RB to run through them and get the consistent 3-4 yard gains, as well as a back who has home-run burst. As with the o-line, this may take time to develop, but it would be nice to go into 2010 knowing that we have 2 or 3 guys who can carry the rock effectively and at least 1 guy who has big-play potential.

(3) Turning around the TD-INT numbers at QB. We threw 9 TDs and 22 INTs last year. Craft threw 7 TDs to our team and 6 to our opponents. Throwing for 22 TDs and 9 INTs is probably too much to ask of a redshirt freshman QB, but I would have to think that more TDs than INTs—14-12 perhaps—is possible.

(4) Deep threat at WR. As with our running game, we didn’t have a deep passing attack last year. Our longest pass play went for 43 yards (not a TD). Only 2 WRs (Embree and Moya) had even 1 catch for 30 yards or longer. Part was lack of pass protection, part was Craft’s arm, and part was lack of great speed at WR. With other things coming together, we need to develop a deep threat in the passing game. All the better if it’s someone who will be returning to the team in 2010 (meaning not Austin, who’ll be a senior this year).

(5) Finally, I expect us to fight in each game. We showed some grit last year in many of our games (BYU excepted). Playing with a woeful offense , we hung tough in many games for 2 or 3 quarters before the wheels fell off the clunker we were trying to drive to the auto show. Fight and improvement in the areas described above will manifest in fewer blowouts and more competitive games. Perhaps we still go 4-8, but instead of 6 blowout losses, we have only 1 or 2. Or we stay competitive in 10 games and more of those into wins than predicted. These are little things, but I think they are important. Just as you have to walk before you can run, we need to get back to being average before we can be good. Being competitive against good teams is the beginning of that ascent.

I am sure everyone here is intelligent enough to pick it up, but writers need to avoid statements like this:

In fact, there’s only seven games UCLA can win — San Diego State, Kansas State, at Stanford, at Arizona, Washington, at Washington State, Arizona State.

Seven games we “can” win? That is ridiculous. We can beat Cal if we play well and they make mistakes. We can beat Tennessee if we play well and they don’t. Oregon, Oregon State and USC—of course we “can” beat them on the right day. Anyone remember 13-9? Or that we have only lost to OSU once in the past 6 tries. Or that we play Oregon at home and only lost to them by 1 TD last year?

Can and cannot have nothing to do with will and will not or probabilities. We can also lose to SDSU and Washington. Let’s play the games and don’t give me this garbage about who we can and cannot beat.

Hey N, You meant to write ‘mystique’ not ‘mystic’, right? :)