I picked minimum of 10 wins, with possible 11 wins in regular season. My analysis of key games is below.
GT: Losing Jahmyr Gibbs is a huge loss for GT. He was their best weapon when we beat them badly before. We should beat them by at least 14 in '22.
Lou.: While Malik had a great game on the ground against us, we surrendered even more yards to underneath passes caught where LBs were unable to cover their assignments. I watched the Lou game again this week and noticed that Malik hit us for 7 or 8 of these plays where the reception was made 8-12 yards downfield, and then with 5-15 yards added on in YAC. Almost all of these catches created a first down, even on some long yardage 3rd down plays. We gave up 100-125 yds in this fashion.
We now have Lewis at LB with much more speed and coverage ability. Also, mid-season last year we stopped trying to cover slot receivers with a LB with insufficient speed and modified the scheme to go with more speedy DBs, usually Justin Hodges, in this responsibility. We should now take away much of the underneath success that the Lou offense used to stay on the field, which led to scores or greater field position for Lou.
Also, we have added even more lethal offensive weapons this season with the Auburn WR and FL TE.
While still a close game, I believe we beat Lou by 7-9 points this year.
Cincy: The loss of Ridder, Ford, Gardner and many other Defensive components will take Cincy several steps back. Fickle has recruited well and brings in strong new talent, but there will be lots of new faces in Cincy trying to replace departing projected NFL talent. Still a tough fight but projecting a UCF win by 4.
SMU: I believe that SMU will be even stronger this year due to strong HS and transfer recruiting. While we have improved as well, I don't believe we have closed the gap. Projecting an SMU win by 14.
Possibly One other miscellaneous unanticipated loss may happen and would be our 2nd loss of the season.
All other games: Projecting UCF wins all games not listed above by more than a TD.
TOTAL: 10-2 to 11-1 regular season finish.
Note re: the quarterback question. While Keene and the offense stuttered in several games last year, Keene improved greatly as the season progressed. This is shown by the fact that Keene won 6 out of the last 7 games with a total score of 182-72 in those 6 wins. The only loss of those 7 is SMU, to whom I am predicting another loss this year. This comes to an average of 30.3 points a game, including 29 against SEC foe Florida.
In this year, we should have an improved Keene or Plumlee or TC, as determined by Gus, if he determines that at least one of them is outplaying Keene. These are the QB assumptions which are part of the above season projections.
