How would your feelings about the season change with a different schedule?
As a disclaimer, I am NOT defending Mike Norvell in any way. He is a TERRIBLE coach and should be fired today. I’m just curious if anyone here thinks we would be able to reach a respectable season if we had a schedule like Miami’s. While the SMU game was extremely ugly and dissapointing, it was a competitive game against a ranked opponent with high expectations, and there were some good plays. Looking at the rest of the schedule, we start the season with FIVE currently ranked FBS opponents. #17 SMU, #12 Alabama, #25 UVA, #24 Louisville, and #7 Miami. Additionally, Pitt and Florida are sitting just out of the current top 25. Yikes.
Much of my despair after last night’s game is that basically that our entire P4 schedule outside of NC State, Clemson, and maybe Florida looks entirely unwinnable. However, for a second, imagine if we had Miami’s remaining schedule after that game. They play:
FAMU, Wake Forest, Central Michigan, Us, Clemson, Pitt, UNC, Notre Dame, Duke, Virginia Tech, and Boston College.
Would this change anyone’s feelings about the rest of the season? Would us being competitive last night make you feel like we have a shot at 8-9 wins with this lineup? For me personally (replacing us with their first matchup of Stanford), I would be feeling reasonably confident we could start 5-1 and finish 7-2 in the ACC with this schedule.
Again, this is NOT defending Norvell in any way or trying to argue that this team is good. I’m just trying to see if people’s perceptions looking forward would be different after the close game last night if we didn’t have the schedule of doom and despair ahead.