Originally published at: Offseason Hype Surrounds Cowboy Offense, but Cowboy Defenders Confident They’ll Be the Surprise Story This Fall
‘Our defense is really, really solid as well, and I feel like y’all are going to see that this fall.’
It sounds auspicious - hope the defense has a chip on their shoulders.
oSu
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At this point, I’d be happy with an average defense 
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An average defense is exactly what we ended up with last year. The problem was the offense couldn’t score more than 14 points a game.
Yeah, schedule blind… I’d say we’re a 5 win team. We actually got a lot of breaks this year, though… so I think we could pull off 6 or 7 wins. Our offense will probably be able to keep us in a lot of games, but what is the defense? I think I’m an optimist in saying we could win 7 (8 is a stretch, but not off the table), but I don’t know what from Morris’s record makes anyone confident that he’ll win the tough games. Maybe I’m wrong there, and I hope I am, but he seems like a good coach who recruits well, finds those diamonds in the rough, and develops well. I don’t know that he’s a coach who finds a way to beat superior competition, though.
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Yeah I’m thinking around 5 to 7 wins, which considering we’re 4-20 the last two years is a good step in the right directions.
CBS Sports is really high on OSU apparently
Cannot help but wonder if, when the handwriting was on the wall, most teams went vanilla or conservative and didn’t try to humiliate oSu… if so, probably skewed the defensive statistics.
oSu
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Wow. They think we’re going to drop Tech.
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I know right! The only way I could rationalize it is that they think Tech is going to drop a game they shouldn’t like they did last year against Arizona State. Personally, if I were predicting 9-3, I’d have our losses to Oregon, Houston, and Tech.
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Yeah, ASU seems more vulnerable with the offensive turnover.
In order of most likely to lose, I’d say it’s…
1.) Oregon
2.) Tech
3.) Houston
4.) ASU
5.) K-State
6.) UCF
7.) WVU
8.) Colorado
9.) Kansas
10.) ISU
11.) Tulsa
12.) Murray State
I do think any game is losable all the way down to Colorado. We shouldn’t be losing 9-12. On the flip side, outside of Oregon, I think there’s at least a puncher’s chance to win any of the rest.
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HCEM began at Incarnate and moved to NT. At every stop some (most?) of his best players were poached via NIL. Last year he had to bring in north of 70 players (in the 60s the year before that) to get his team. His best DT was hurt early in the season so the D didn’t show out like they hoped (couldn’t afford depth?). Yes, HCEM lost against the best teams they played but when you’re on a shoestring budget, there is little wiggle room for injuries.
NT football budget was $2M last year (thought it was only $1M).
Tulane budget was around $5M last year.
SF had $8M last year.
Yes, one could argue that Morris failed to win the bigger games on his schedule last year against Sumrall at Tulane and Golesh at SF, but it was an uphill battle to start. Only Golesh with 4x the budget won big against NT.
This year will be telling…
oSu
Yes. What was his most impressive win?
He did a great job building an upper tier G5 team and that might mean he can build an upper tier P4 team.
Just qualifying your statement for those that may erroneously want to begin chirping that Morris cannot win big games. Even against other g5 there is disparity in program funding.
oSu
Well, ok, I’m not chirping. I’ll believe it when I see it, and I’m not saying that dismissively. If he shows it, then I’ll believe it, and maybe he will. Winning big games is usually going to mean taking down teams with more funding, though.
Agree with and expect that… hope it happens quicker than later.
oSu