Stanford, Arizona State, Oregon State, Washington State, and Cal all look like very mediocre teams, squarely bottom half of Power Five conference teams. At that level games are really tossups. When somebody says these teams will be "favored" over Stanford, we're probably talking about them being favored by 1-4 points. This is the mediocre morass.
A related point: part of the reason I like things like Sagarin is to have a more insightful picture on team quality than the information captured in a simple win-loss record. The truth is that there is not much difference between 3/4/5 win teams.
And for those who don't like the Poindexter-esque hairsplitting of things like Sagarin I think the basic insight of what I'm saying is that evaluating our season is actually pretty simple: getting to a sixth win is a simple binary test of whether the season is acceptable or not. I really can't imagine a losing season that would be encouraging (ok, maybe if there are multiple competitive losses AND McKee and the offensive line come back.....yeah right). Given the questions around the program, a bowl could be something to build on. It's about whether we can beat the mediocre teams and take one or two wins that look like long shots right now. And we shouldn't exaggerate how long the shots are as some of the games this thread isn't even talking about as winnable (Washington, UCLA) are also pretty mediocre teams (7-9-ish point spreads only because we're on the road).
A related point: part of the reason I like things like Sagarin is to have a more insightful picture on team quality than the information captured in a simple win-loss record. The truth is that there is not much difference between 3/4/5 win teams.
And for those who don't like the Poindexter-esque hairsplitting of things like Sagarin I think the basic insight of what I'm saying is that evaluating our season is actually pretty simple: getting to a sixth win is a simple binary test of whether the season is acceptable or not. I really can't imagine a losing season that would be encouraging (ok, maybe if there are multiple competitive losses AND McKee and the offensive line come back.....yeah right). Given the questions around the program, a bowl could be something to build on. It's about whether we can beat the mediocre teams and take one or two wins that look like long shots right now. And we shouldn't exaggerate how long the shots are as some of the games this thread isn't even talking about as winnable (Washington, UCLA) are also pretty mediocre teams (7-9-ish point spreads only because we're on the road).