There are no posts on the free board because it is only allowed three posts a week. So now all the normal conversation has moved to the confidential board.
I have no idea what this means, unless it's sarcasm, which is notoriously misinterpreted over the 'net.
After the other night I don’t think we are going to lose to anyone we are supposed to beat.
Given that criteria, we should expect to celebrate the end of 2017 (December 30th at home to Boise St, our first Mountain West game) with a 11-1 record. The lone blemish figures to be Arizona. The Wildcats are the one and only P5 opponent on the schedule. Oops! I forgot Illinois. Yes, they are a Big 10 team, but they have a good (bad?) chance to capture last place in this season’s Big 10. While they, like us, are currently 3-0, upon closer examination, they’re worlds apart from the Rebels.
While it’s problematic, trying to compare records at such an early point in the season, it’s not impossible. We’ve all played three cupcakes, although Stanford might dispute that description of Eastern Washington. And the Illini barely (77-74) squeaked past UT-Martindale, whereas we (and Arizona) blew out all three of our opponents, to date.
To put some numbers to the conversation, currently the Rebels are 26th in America in FG% @52.9%. Compare that to Illinois which sits at 143rd-45.9%. For points scored, UNLV is 63rd, having posted 297 points. The Illini are 134th-261 points. 3-pt %, we are 103rd with 37.5%, while they are a dismal 340th at 23.1%, and finally Total RB’s. UNLV-6th with 51.0 RB’s per game. Illinois is 156th and 38.3rpg.
What happens once we get into the in-conference schedule is anybody’s guess, but the OOC results are easy to predict. Must we play the games? Or maybe all our opponents will agree to save face and just pencil in a big fat “L” in the record books. We could make better use of the time figuring out how to beat Arizona.
But seriously, it’s early, and anything can happen. There’s certainly no way to predict injuries, transfers, etc. But we seem to be deep enough to withstand a normal amount of misfortune. And it’s an uncommon luxury, of late, to be a Rebel fan, and actually believe that we will win the games we should win. Over the past five years that has not been the case. There have been far too many losses to teams which we held a definite edge in athletic ability.
But we’ve learned the painful lesson that recruiting athletes is not enough. A coach must recruit a team. That means they must also be taught to play together. They aren’t just auditioning for the “next level”. So, if we arrive on 12/30/17 at 11-1, I won’t be disappointed. 12-0 and I’ll be over the moon. Anything less than 11-1 will be unacceptable. There’s a new Sheriff in town. The Mountain West should take notice.
Note: I've realized I overlooked next week's match-up with the winner/loser of the Utah-Ole Miss game. So adjust the numbers accordingly please.
Go Rebels!
