Upcoming SEC opponents

[Jaxcat]

USC is no powerhouse but it's after a bye week, it's on the road and the matchups seem to favor them.

GA, TX - too much talent. We might keep it close but highly unlikely to pull upsets.

TN - will score a bunch of points, make our WRs beat them, which I don't see happening. Bad matchup for our team. Their run defense is good enough to make us win by throwing and I doubt we can win a shootout with them.

AU - looked like a mess against OU. A bunch of penalties, left a WR uncovered for a TD and still was in the game with 5:00 to go. It's on the road and they manhandled us last year. It will take a really good game for us to upset them, I believe.

Florida is a complete mess. Had 32 yards of total offense against Miami in the first half. Lagway seems to have regressed. DL is completely beat up and Miami ran effectively between the tackles. Maybe our best chance of an SEC win. Napier has his house on the market (or should).

Vandy - they keep rolling. Had us pretty well figured out last year when they won. If we play a really good game, it's close to being a toss-up. If not, we lose.

Unless we still have another level to this team, I think one SEC win is the over/under at this point. A few games I don't think we have a chance of winning barring a monumental upset of epic proportions. A couple of others are possible, but we have to really play well and get some breaks.

I hope I've badly underestimated this team.

[Pete Hogwallop]

I'd put the over/under at 2.5 from that list.

[Jaxcat]

Which 2 or 3 do you think we'll beat? 3 are very, very long shots (GA, TX and TN), 2 are doubtful (USC, VU) and 2 are close but, on paper, they have better talent.

I hope you're right, but I'd lay a lot of dough on under 2.5 right now. Kicking USC's butt on Saturday would change my mind greatly. If we get handled, though, the rest of the season could go south in a hurry.

[Matt Dillon]

My preseason prediction was 4-8. There's one more guaranteed win on the schedule (Tenn. Tech). Surely between So. Car., Fl., Auburn, Vandy and UofL they can win at least one of those.

[Pete Hogwallop]

Which 2 or 3 do you think we'll beat? 3 are very, very long shots (GA, TX and TN), 2 are doubtful (USC, VU) and 2 are close but, on paper, they have better talent.

I hope you're right, but I'd lay a lot of dough on under 2.5 right now. Kicking USC's butt on Saturday would change my mind greatly. If we get handled, though, the rest of the season could go south in a hurry.

2.5 from these: Auburn, Florida, USC, Vandy

[Trueblujr]

I think it all hinges on how we perform on Saturday night. If we can go into Columbia and pull off a win against a semi-struggling South Carolina, then I have some hope against teams like Auburn, Florida, Vandy and Louisville. Not that we would win them all, but should at least be competitive. We played a good Ole Miss team very competitively and had our chances. I tend to lay that loss on coaching mistakes and not talent disparity. As I've said before on here, at this point in Stoops tenure we should be on a similar level as all of those teams I mentioned. We showed again, there's not a ton of disparity between us and Ole Miss. We need to carry that into South Carolina Saturday and come out on the winning side. This again, will be on the Coaches. Make the right personnel decisions (start Boley), build a better game plan, limit mistakes and turnovers, actually show us you took advantage of the week off.

I'll venture to say this is the most pivotal game of Stoops coaching career. While on paper, it's "just South Carolina" so to speak, it's a game we can, should and need to win at this point in his tenure. This game is the difference in the season (and subsequently Stoops career)moving in a decent direction towards getting us Bowl eligible and the season going off the rails. If we lose a close one as a result of coaching blunders, or get rolled, the season is done and Stoops should start making other plans for his future.

[Jaxcat]

2.5 from these: Auburn, Florida, USC, Vandy

If I had to rank these in order from least likely to most likely:
Auburn
USC
Vandy
Florida

By no means would I assume any of those are wins. Right now with the way Florida is playing, although their defense remains very solid, I would say we have the best chance against them. Auburn, on the road, dominated us last year, Freeze coaching for his job - tough win, imo. USC- on the road, after a bye week, QB will give us many problems, defense still above average, crushed us last year. Vandy - they are playing well, are obviously well-coached, have a great system that maximizes Pavia's skills, beat us on our home field last year, but still it's Vandy, right?

To beat the o/u, we'd have to beat 3 of the 4. I hope we do, but, if I'm betting, I'm betting under all day long. No confidence that at least one of these 4 games won't be the one every season where the team looks lost, they have no gameplan, play flat as a pancake and mail it in. That means the other 3 would all need to be wins. Tall order, imo. Again, I'd LOVE to lose a bunch of money betting the under.

[WeWant9]

S. Car seems like one of those games you just got to find a way to get out with a win. Otherwise, UK is looking at about 5 straight Ls.

[Jload]

I need to see us play another decent team before I can decide. We played 2 tomato cans and lost to only decent team we played. To me the jury is still out. It doesn't help that Stoops is still waffling about who his QB is 4 games in. He needs to make blasted decision here a pick a QB to lead his team.