What are the 4-5 wins in the Big 12 you see? I’ll give you maybe wins over Iowa State or Kansas, but everyone else has as much talent or more than we do.
WVU was pretty bad and I don’t think we could even beat them as things stand. Gus had better live up to his recruiting prowess or next year will be a long year.
We are competitive with almost all of the teams in the XII. It's not about who has the better 85. The guys sitting on the bench don't make tackles or score points for either team.
It's about the best 22 plus about 20 quality reserves, especially later in the season. There is no defense in the country that can stop JRP when he is on. Did you see what he did to LSU in LSUs heyday? TC is an awesome qb talent as well. We have P5 starting level talent at RB and WR.
Admittedly we need to continue to upgrade but all teams across the country are in a constant state of change in this era. Our incoming recruits along with upcoming portal activity should enhance our roster even more.
That being said, our top 22 and rotational guys will be competitive with approximately 9 or 10 of our potential 13 XII opponents. Of those we will win some and we will lose some. That is where I am projecting we will win 4-5 of our conference games. Of course, this cannot be validly supported or disputed until we know which 9 conference opponents we will face.
Who are we competitive with?
Definitely Competitive with (meaning for this discussion that we could win or lose against them): Kansas, Iowa State, WVU, Cincy, Houston, Texas Tech, BYU, Kansas State (loss in 22 to Tulane who we beat once in 22, and their All-world rusher Deuce Vaughn probably leaves this year). That's 8 teams.
Possibly Competitive with: (meaning possible win but it would be an upset) Ok. St. (down year in 22. Let's see how they rebound); Oklahoma (they looked bad in 22, 6-6, and their best skilled players are jumping ship. If we can keep it close against their flawed defense for one half DG can get rattled, especially if we get 1-2 good hits on him. He gets soft and jumpy after taking hits); Baylor ( they are good but not infallible world beaters). That's 3 teams.
Not competitive with (Highly unlikely we beat them in year one): Texas and TCU. 2 teams