I just don't see the same dramatic improvement as most of you. I'd like to, but I can't. I would not be shocked by an another losing season TBH.
I still think we have health issues and I know we have youth issues. A ton of guys we brought in the past few years that were highly heralded recruits have not been able to contribute to the team for various reasons and many of them look like they never will. That leaves us with pretty middle-of-the-road talent at a lot of positions, objectively, and I haven't seen any indication the guys running the show that they can win 10 games with average talent.
We still have huge holes at WR, a gigantic question mark at QB (there was not one other team in the Big12 last year where it was clear that either of our guys would start over their starter, and 9 teams had waaay better QB play than us, with one of the remaining other two schools sending a QB to the NFL in the 4th (?) round), and extreme youth in the front 7 on defense (DL, particularly, could be pretty ugly, we just don't have much at that position).
I have hope that we can get our run game going next year and that our defense, as it always has recently, regardless of talent, will put us in a position to be able to win most games outside of the juggernaut teams. If the run game struggles or the defense turns out to be less than adequate we could be in for an extremely long season. Not trying to be negative but I just don't see 9 or 10 wins this year. These guys will be learning a new offense again as well.
CSU W 1-0
@ Toledo W 2-0
Wyoming W 3-0
@ West Virginia L 3-1
@ Texas L 3-2
Kansas L 3-3
@ Kansas St W 4-3
Missouri L 4-4
Texas A&M W 5-4
@ Iowa St. W 6-4
@ Oklahoma St. L 6-5
Nebraska - Extremely tough to call, they lose some players for sure, but I think they will be a pretty strong team, relatively speaking, anyway. I can't really predict a loss in this game, so let's say W making our season record 7-5.
I also won't be surprised to see us drop one of the 3: KSU, ISU, or A&M. We lose one of these games every year. Nebraska at the end of the season really is a tossup too at this point, because no one really knows for sure how good either of our teams will be.
If they can win 8 going into the bowl game that would be nice. I don't see it happening though, unless these guys overperform a bit. 10 and no would be great but I don't think either of those conditions will be satisfied.