Exactly what Matt said. If you have a 25% chance of winning each of 11 games, your expected win total is 3.
Same idea as it also being very very hard to go undefeated even when you're favored in every single game. If you have a 90% chance of winning each of 12 games, your expected win total is not 12. It's just under 11. Ask Alabama, who was favored in every regular season game and still lost to A&M while favored by 18.
The spring game meant nothing. One of the first quotes from Shaw in his post-game interview was “We took a lot of the things we’ve been working on and didn’t show them today, for obvious reasons." EJ SMITH ONLY RAN THE BALL FOUR TIMES. The first-team O was out there for only like 3-4 series in total. It was a glorified practice that was as vanilla as can be, which is impressive given who the playcaller is. Also a final note that the defensive shift to a 4-3 is directly meant to be better against the run (4 down linemen).
Now keep in mind none of this changes the fact that we will still likely be bad, but my win prediction is not 1. It's more like 4, since Shaw will still somehow beat a team he shouldn't (see: Oregon).
Same idea as it also being very very hard to go undefeated even when you're favored in every single game. If you have a 90% chance of winning each of 12 games, your expected win total is not 12. It's just under 11. Ask Alabama, who was favored in every regular season game and still lost to A&M while favored by 18.
The spring game meant nothing. One of the first quotes from Shaw in his post-game interview was “We took a lot of the things we’ve been working on and didn’t show them today, for obvious reasons." EJ SMITH ONLY RAN THE BALL FOUR TIMES. The first-team O was out there for only like 3-4 series in total. It was a glorified practice that was as vanilla as can be, which is impressive given who the playcaller is. Also a final note that the defensive shift to a 4-3 is directly meant to be better against the run (4 down linemen).
Now keep in mind none of this changes the fact that we will still likely be bad, but my win prediction is not 1. It's more like 4, since Shaw will still somehow beat a team he shouldn't (see: Oregon).