Projections for all Big Ten teams







When I want solid predictive analysis I check with Matt Daniels first.
 


That's quite a beard on Lovie.
 




3-0 non-conf plus Illinois, @Rutgers, and Maryland is the 6-6 baseline. Would be a slight disappointment, but at least not going down from the previous season. Worth noting that PJ had identical records in year 2 and 3 at WMU before the breakout in year 4.

Then @Purdue, Nebraska, and Wisconsin are our variance. Would love them all, but I think 2-1 is the realistic upper end. 1-2 more likely. Hopefully not 0-3.

Penn St, @Iowa, @NW is unfortunately a brutal stretch where I think 0-3 is likely.


But no big losses is also a big difference from last season that won't show up in the W-L numbers alone.
 

3-0 non-conf plus Illinois, @Rutgers, and Maryland is the 6-6 baseline. Would be a slight disappointment, but at least not going down from the previous season. Worth noting that PJ had identical records in year 2 and 3 at WMU before the breakout in year 4.

Then @Purdue, Nebraska, and Wisconsin are our variance. Would love them all, but I think 2-1 is the realistic upper end. 1-2 more likely. Hopefully not 0-3.

Penn St, @Iowa, @NW is unfortunately a brutal stretch where I think 0-3 is likely.


But no big losses is also a big difference from last season that won't show up in the W-L numbers alone.

Really think people have northwestern and penn state overrated this year.
Northwestern was awful without their quarterback last year, and they don’t have him. I guess if you assume a guy who had to leave his school is going to be awesome. But he is likely going to be okay at best as a first year guy.
Penn State is going to be an average team this year. I think they finish behind Michigan state. I was thinking behind Indiana but Indiana has a brutal schedule on the home road breakdown. So I no longer think that.
 

Really think people have northwestern and penn state overrated this year.
Northwestern was awful without their quarterback last year, and they don’t have him. I guess if you assume a guy who had to leave his school is going to be awesome. But he is likely going to be okay at best as a first year guy.
Penn State is going to be an average team this year. I think they finish behind Michigan state. I was thinking behind Indiana but Indiana has a brutal schedule on the home road breakdown. So I no longer think that.

Wasn’t the strength of NW last year a ton of seniors, and a pretty solid front seven on defense and good o line? QB was a good game manager, but the Gophers played fairly well in that game but shot themselves in the foot on offense. I think they will regress a couple of notches unless new QB is a game changer.
 

Really think people have northwestern and penn state overrated this year.
Northwestern was awful without their quarterback last year, and they don’t have him. I guess if you assume a guy who had to leave his school is going to be awesome. But he is likely going to be okay at best as a first year guy.
Penn State is going to be an average team this year. I think they finish behind Michigan state. I was thinking behind Indiana but Indiana has a brutal schedule on the home road breakdown. So I no longer think that.

You could end up exactly correct and I could have egg all over my face.

If it costs me a big helping of eggface for the Gophs to win 9,10 this regular season, that’s a price I’m willing to pay!


But for now, with it being preseason and having no data, I’m going with NW being West champs, Fitz being an awesome coach that does more with less, and now he (finally, similar to Minn) has some of the best practice facilities in the league, to go with the academic reputation.
 



You could end up exactly correct and I could have egg all over my face.

If it costs me a big helping of eggface for the Gophs to win 9,10 this regular season, that’s a price I’m willing to pay!


But for now, with it being preseason and having no data, I’m going with NW being West champs, Fitz being an awesome coach that does more with less, and now he (finally, similar to Minn) has some of the best practice facilities in the league, to go with the academic reputation.

YOU Think the academic reputation of northwesternnis going to help them overcome the loss of their multiple year starter quarterback?

Last year with Fitz, academics, and practice fields but without healthy Thorson (he played anyways) they lost to Akron and Duke.
 

Wasn’t the strength of NW last year a ton of seniors, and a pretty solid front seven on defense and good o line? QB was a good game manager, but the Gophers played fairly well in that game but shot themselves in the foot on offense. I think they will regress a couple of notches unless new QB is a game changer.
True, except when Thorson was playing hurt early in the year they were 1-3
And if the strength was a ton of seniors that would play even more into the idea they’ll take a step back.


Northwestern will have at least 4 losses before they play Minnesota this year.
 

YOU Think the academic reputation of northwesternnis going to help them overcome the loss of their multiple year starter quarterback?

Last year with Fitz, academics, and practice fields but without healthy Thorson (he played anyways) they lost to Akron and Duke.

I get it, you’re desperate to dismiss NW and hope they’ll go away and be the worst P5 in the country.

I don't think that is true, for now. We’ll see
 

I get it, you’re desperate to dismiss NW and hope they’ll go away and be the worst P5 in the country.

I don't think that is true, for now. We’ll see

For sure. Me thinking they’re going to be 6-6 or 75 next year means I think they’re going to be the worst.


What do you think northwestern record will be in their first 9 games?
 

Really think people have northwestern and penn state overrated this year.
Northwestern was awful without their quarterback last year, and they don’t have him. I guess if you assume a guy who had to leave his school is going to be awesome. But he is likely going to be okay at best as a first year guy.
Penn State is going to be an average team this year. I think they finish behind Michigan state. I was thinking behind Indiana but Indiana has a brutal schedule on the home road breakdown. So I no longer think that.

Hunter Johnson is a former composite 5 star recruit and transferred because Clemson brought in what is going to be the best QB prospect since Peyton Manning if not better. I'm expecting him to have a Nathan Stanely type year. Maybe Shea Patterson level.

And I think Penn State will still be pretty good with Clifford at QB and Ricky Slade at RB. Former top 200 QB and 5 star RB. I wouldn't expect too much of a drop off in their level of play from what they've had before. And I think their defense will be top 2 in the conference with Mater-Gross and Micah Parsons. We'll see though.
 

What do you think northwestern record will be in their first 9 games?

Until we get data, there’s no reason to assume they won’t be West champs again. From all accounts they got an excellent QB to replace Thorson.
 

Hunter Johnson is a former composite 5 star recruit and transferred because Clemson brought in what is going to be the best QB prospect since Peyton Manning if not better. I'm expecting him to have a Nathan Stanely type year. Maybe Shea Patterson level.

And I think Penn State will still be pretty good with Clifford at QB and Ricky Slade at RB. Former top 200 QB and 5 star RB. I wouldn't expect too much of a drop off in their level of play from what they've had before. And I think their defense will be top 2 in the conference with Mater-Gross and Micah Parsons. We'll see though.

Right.

And then @Iowa for the icing on the cake. I unfortunately think 0-3 is the most likely. At least until we get more data to say otherwise.
 

Until we get data, there’s no reason to assume they won’t be West champs again. From all accounts they got an excellent QB to replace Thorson.

I’m starting to gather that until we “have data” that it is unreasonable to expect anything to be any different than the previous year. Seem about right?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Until we get data, there’s no reason to assume they won’t be West champs again. From all accounts they got an excellent QB to replace Thorson.

I don't know what you mean. There is plenty of data available: Starters lost to graduation, production returning, the quality of the past recruiting class, statistical reversion to the mean, etc.

There are many points that are used by every analyst in the country before the season starts to project a team's performance in the upcoming year.
 

Until we get data, there’s no reason to assume they won’t be West champs again. From all accounts they got an excellent QB to replace Thorson.
"From all accounts"

The problem is, 99% of the accounts have never seen the QB ever play a football game.
 

Hunter Johnson is a former composite 5 star recruit and transferred because Clemson brought in what is going to be the best QB prospect since Peyton Manning if not better. I'm expecting him to have a Nathan Stanely type year. Maybe Shea Patterson level.

And I think Penn State will still be pretty good with Clifford at QB and Ricky Slade at RB. Former top 200 QB and 5 star RB. I wouldn't expect too much of a drop off in their level of play from what they've had before. And I think their defense will be top 2 in the conference with Mater-Gross and Micah Parsons. We'll see though.
I think there is a little dropoff. Not huge. The big deal is even if they drop off one game they are an 8-4 football team. I see them as an 8-4 or 7-5 football team this year.

I think they lose @Iowa, @Ohio State, Home against Michigan
I think @Minnesota and @Michigan State are tossup games.
I think they realistically could lose to Pitt or Indiana at home, but I think they probably win them both.

I would probably predict them 8-4... I think they are more likely to win 7 than 9.
 

Until we get data, there’s no reason to assume they won’t be West champs again. From all accounts they got an excellent QB to replace Thorson.

This guy who by all accounts is an excellent quarterback hasn’t been named the starter 6 days out
 


Really think people have northwestern and penn state overrated this year.
Northwestern was awful without their quarterback last year, and they don’t have him. I guess if you assume a guy who had to leave his school is going to be awesome. But he is likely going to be okay at best as a first year guy.
Penn State is going to be an average team this year. I think they finish behind Michigan state. I was thinking behind Indiana but Indiana has a brutal schedule on the home road breakdown. So I no longer think that.

I think NW just gets respect because they manage to exceed expectations often (of course, they also have down years). We don't know how good the new QB will be but he's a former 5 star recruit so a lot of people thought he would be good at one time. You know how the QB position is: you can be good, but, if you're number 2, you often don't play much and it's got to be very difficult to earn a starting QB position at Clemson.

I agree that it's logical to expect Penn State to take a step back this year, but they've recruited at a very high level the last few years so it's also not hard to believe they could maintain a similar level of success. I doubt there was much hype around Trace McSorley three years ago at this time but we were one of the first Big Ten teams to discover what a game changer he could be.
 

I think NW just gets respect because they manage to exceed expectations often (of course, they also have down years). We don't know how good the new QB will be but he's a former 5 star recruit so a lot of people thought he would be good at one time. You know how the QB position is: you can be good, but, if you're number 2, you often don't play much and it's got to be very difficult to earn a starting QB position at Clemson.

I agree that it's logical to expect Penn State to take a step back this year, but they've recruited at a very high level the last few years so it's also not hard to believe they could maintain a similar level of success. I doubt there was much hype around Trace McSorley three years ago at this time but we were one of the first Big Ten teams to discover what a game changer he could be.

To your first paragraph...at this point the coaches at northwestern are saying they haven’t made a decision yet. So if 5 star guy is really that good don’t you think he would be the starter by now? It’s difficult to earn the starting job at Clemson yes. Apparently for him it’s difficult at northwestern too.

For sure. If penn state has a quarterback step up and play as well as Mcsorely right away, they’ll be really good.
As is I think they win 7-9 games...but they will be clearly a second tier big ten team not a big ten east contender.
 

I doubt there was much hype around Trace McSorley three years ago at this time but we were one of the first Big Ten teams to discover what a game changer he could be.

Daryl Clark, Matt McGloin ....
 

Until we get data, there’s no reason to assume they won’t be West champs again. From all accounts they got an excellent QB to replace Thorson.

All accounts obviously didn’t include the coach who decided to give the other quarterback more snaps in the first half.
 




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