I like how people say we were missed field goals away from a 10 win season. In sports thats crap. You have no idea what effect a made field goal has in the game. Does the other team come right back and score? Does it motivate them to focus more and not turn the ball over 5 times?There are hundred of what ifs in games and making a field goal doesn’t guarantee the outcome would have changed. Yes we have a veteran offensive line, that was mediocre last year. I hate looking at returning starters to judge whether a team will be good. It means very little when those starters were average at best. We also have an inexperienced secondary but talented so how quickly they step up determines alot about our season. While we have talent, we still need to have a lot go right this season for us to up the win total.
Making the field goal at the end of the Clemson game would have guaranteed a win. Time expired as the ball was being kicked. A dropped INT likely cost us a game. A freshman WR lined up incorrectly cost us a TD that would have made losing to BC nearly impossible. The only game where a field goal made may not have made any difference in your miss/made field goal analogy was the ECU game where we missed 2 chip shot FGs.
Mistakes are a part of football and you are what your record says you are in any given season. Evaluating next season’s potential it is fair to analyze why games were lost not merely note that they were lost. True enough we can’t count to being in the same position with Clemson and FSU and I don’t count on winning those 2 games. I believe we CAN win them, just that I don’t count on them.
Our offensive line couldn’t block our D-line last year (according to DD). This spring DD said they were able to block our D-line — not that they dominated the D-line. While that doesn’t guarantee anything, it is encouraging to me. While our O-line may be considered mediocre by some, it gave up relatively few sacks. I’m sure some of that stat can be attributed to our short passing game.
I share your view of our secondary. It will be more skilled and if our D-line and LBs can keep the pressure off them, they should be a better group by the time we get to the ND game.
As far as a lot of things needing to go right for us to up our win total, I believe if we can stop a few things from going wrong, our win total will go up.
