Urban Meyer has taken his stress levels and 2 national title rings over to ESPN to sit and answer question upon question about the OSU job for the next few months to come. Meanwhile.....up and coming Will Muschamp sheds his "coach-in-waiting" moniker for a top head coach's job and his new team's fans anxiously await the outcome. College Football News offers up this preview: http://cfn.scout.com/a.z?s=451&p=2&c=557957 Having witnessed last season how disruptive it was to UF's offense to lose key players on offense to injury ( Demps ) and seeing the ineptness at times of the OL contribute to Brantley's overall ineffectiveness I can see stormclouds brewing this first season for WM and co. That brutal SEC schedule will create unexpected injury and there is no way around that. I see UF being competitive because of the talent on defense but when the injury bug mounts in October then 3 SEC losses are quite possible and likely. 9-3 would be an awesome achievement and 7-5 could happen just as easily. Keeping my hopes up I say 9-3 and no SEC East title with a return to the Outback as a top 20 ranked program with great potential for 2012. A bowl win over Nebraska later ( just for you AJ... :wink: ) it's a 10-3 finish and a #12 final ranking. Sitting here today I'll take it.
I'll take the prediction of 9-3 and an Outback Bowl victory. However I don't believe a 7 - 5 is just as likely. In fact I think winning the East is much more likely than 7-5. Of course I am well known for my Orange and Blue glasses.
:idea: Florida and Stanford are among the most interesting teams to watch this season for several reasons: - New head coaches, who have never been head coaches before take over from universally recognized great coaches. - A lot of highly recruited talent on both teams, although Florida's defense worries me. The Gators return only two players on defense and most of the starters are sophs. While Charlie's offense has been getting all the attention, I think they'll be fine. It's the young defense that must step up. Meanwhile, Stanford's new coach has Andrew Luck at QB, so they had better score a lot of points or he won't last long... - Both schools have similar scheduling philosophies. Outside of their conferences they play a bunch of bananas, with one big exception: The Gators finish with Florida State and Stanford finishes with Notre Dame... These will be two fun teams to watch this year.
I'm willing to bet UF will have a schedule ranked in the top 3 for toughness by the end of the season. It's all we need to handle that's for sure.