Going to overtime against top 10 team, East Division champ Penn State in Happy Valley gave me reason to believe the team was close to breaking through.
Tied with top ten team, West Division Champ Wisconsin in Camp Randall with under 7 minutes to go gave me reason to believe the team was close to breaking through.
Taking top 30 Nebraska down to the wire in Lincoln left me feeling we were close to breaking through.
Playing top 30 Iowa basically straight up left me feeling we were close.
Beating Michigan in Ann Arbor in 2014 and having them beat in 2015 at TCF gave me reason to believe we are close to breaking through.
Absolutely embarrassing Mike Leach's top ranked passing game playing a lot of back-ups gives me reason to believe we are close to breaking through.
Hiring the best offensive line coach in college football, giving him four returning starters and 7 of top 10 from the oline two deep and adding two very good redshirt frosh and a juco and three great frosh recruits gives me reason to feel we are close to breaking through.
Hiring Fleck and Simon, proven great WR coaches who have put lowly ranked WRs in NFL from WMU, and hearing them talk glowingly about Still and Tyler and seeing Holland nektoning and seeing all the the great WR redshirts, walk-ons and recruits gives me reason to have expectations.
Hiring Ciarrocca, a proven QB coach who has put multiple guys in NFL and who runs an offense that actually embraces the passing game gives me reason to have expectations. Watching Croft in Spring ball show a better arm and better legs than Leidner leads me to believe we are close. Knowing they got their hand[picked recruit in early enroll last January helps. Convincing guy who who took all the number two snaps and a bunch of the number ones to stay was great move. Having a four star QB recruit taking off his redshirt is nice.
Returning every single one of a great stable of tight ends gives me expectations. Hiring Callahan, offensive line coach of the year in 2016, gives me expectations. Hearing Lingen looks great gives me expectations. Hearing Beebe is healthy, Hearing Paulson looks great gives me expectations.
Hearing Fleck say in Spring that the new rb coach already was improving the returning RBs games gives me expectations.
Knowing the S and C guy was offered by Notre Dame and seeing double digit % strength and agility and speed improvements across the board reported gives me expectations. New S and C guy has program that will reduce injuries so that is a reason for expectations.
That no media member in town can come up with 15 let alone 22 actual names of guys who missed Spring ball makes me think PJ is overplaying injury issues.
Returning pre-season All Big Ten DT Steve Richardson to anchor the defense up front along with big and experienced seniors Stelter and Merrick and fourth year guy Moore (nice weight room performances recently highlighted) and bringing in a juco All American in Silver gives me expectations and reason to believe we are close.
Watching the athleticism and physicality of Poock, Celestin, Cashman, Martin, Barber, Coughlin, Devers, DeLattiboudere, Waters, Huff gives me expectations. Love we were beating Power 5 schools for dline recruits.
Seeing that Paup was sending lowly ranked talent from Northern Iowa into NFL gives me expectations.
Knowing that Sawvel recruited lowly ranked db talent that ended up to be NFL talent gives me expectations for Winfield, Shenault, Durr, Kiondre, Craighton. Knowing we hired a db coach away from the SEC and that he landed 3-4 DBs with Power 5 offers gives me expectations. Hearing Fleck wish he had a team of Jacob Huff's and knowing that McGhee and Kunle bring lot of experience to back end gives me expectations.
Seeing how good the buy-in has been (improving an already good GPA/APR, working asses off for new S and C guy, great team bonding reported, no apparent character/legal issues, great community service reported) gives me expectations.
Knowing the new def coord had top ten defenses at three different stops and had All NFL and All Americans at multiple stops gives me expectations.
Knowing Fleck is an elite motivator and sideline coach makes me think he could help us break through and turn close losses into wins.
Returning a very solid kicker and punter (plus long snapper and depth at P and K) and hiring a dedicated special teams coach gives me expectations.
Getting WI and NE at home and seeing how much talent they lost gives me expectations.
Seeing NE just lose best db to injury and three of their star recruits non-qualify and one of their coaches die and another get arrested and Riley pinning his hopes on a guy who didn't impress at Tulane gives me expectations.
Seeing MSU go 3-9 and imploding in off season gives me expectations.
Seeing Michigan lose 18 NFL talent level guys gives me expectations.
Watching how we manhandled Northwestern in 2016 and seeing what they lost to NFL gives me expectations.
Seeing Lovie implode gives me expectations.
Seeing Buffalo ranked as one of worst teams in NCAA gives me expectations.
Seeing Beavers as Vegas's second least likely Pac Champ makes me think we are close.
All new staff and terrible Purdue team gives me expectations.
Watching us dominate Maryland in 2016 with Rhoda at helm gives me expectations.
Seeing how MTSU was ranked defensively and specifically against the run excites me.
Knowing Iowa may have no returning WR catches and has no defined QB and lost best db to injury in Spring ball gives me reason to think we are close.
Great expectations Knowing that Fleck:
will embrace students better
has much of the media on his side
is planning a great game day experience
has five Big Ten games at home
already has some great start times lined up and is a proven appealing GameDay guy
has a soft schedule to break in with
has an AD and president who fully have his back and will give him all he needs to succeed
has multi-year contract in place so no distractions on that front
already has a ton of recruits committed so has more time to focus on coaching
young healthy guy so likely won't have issues giving full energy for full season
has a state of the art facility ready to go probably for Big Ten Championship practice
has a new character building program that will prevent a repeat of last year's debacle of missing seven guys some weeks
has a new discipline culture that will prevent the dumb late hits and unforced penalties
may get sideline bench situation improved
is designing less stressfull practices
is practicing at a more productive time
has a wife and kids that will make for a great addition to culture
has great record with ball control/turnovers
already has got fans enthused about row the boat and is hanging up paddles at TCF
has benefit of the slugs in Ath Dept exposed and appearently weeded out
new Regents are more football friendly
fans got relief from planned ticket price donation hike
Pitino had good year; enthusiasm spills over especially in student ticket buying due to linked packages
U has money to spend with new TV money and can support gameday operations better with that and very nice soccer revenue coming in after very nice Vikings revenue bump
lot of great new investment in Stadium Village area especially around TCF will enhance gameday experience
8 regular schedule wins three of last four in regular season
5 big ten wins two of last three seasons
beat Purdue four in a row
beat Illini 5 of 6
beat Fitz 3 of 4
beat NE 2 of 4
beat Iowa 3 of 6
record vs non-con opponents is 16-2 since 2012...only non-con losses to 12-1 TCU and 11-2 TCU (the 2015 loss by 6 points gave me expectations we could compete with anybody; well played games, but losses, on road to 12-0 Iowa and top 5 Ohio State in 2015 affirmed that expectation)
two straight bowl wins
This team is so close to breaking through. Coyle expects they can break through. Why he spent big money on buyout and new staff. Fleck knows team is in good situation and has great expectations. Why he turned down other great Power 5 offers and more money from WMU to come here.
