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Interesting that they think Pitt is a certain loss. I think winning at Boise will be more of a challenge than winning at a 2/3 full Heinz Field. Pitt will be better, but so should BG.

tiznow wrote:Interesting that they think Pitt is a certain loss. I think winning at Boise will be more of a challenge than winning at a 2/3 full Heinz Field. Pitt will be better, but so should BG.

I completely agree. Pitt's young talent will mature, but it probably won't be evident in Week One, or at least I'm hoping it won't be evident. They were last seen ruining West Virginia's chance for a BCS bid so they definitely have momentum in the eyes of the media. Their RB, LeSean McCoy, will get his yards but their passing game isn't as prolific as the teams that torched us (BC, Tulsa) last year.

Minnesota had a influx of JUCOs arrive (as part of an overall Top 25 recruiting class) to shore up their defense and should be much improved as well.

I think a 2-2 split in our first 4 would be a good start...considering 3 are on the road and 2 are in the Mountain Time Zone. I think the Falcons will go no worse than 6-2 in MAC play...

I like 8-4, 6-2 MAC and possibly 9-3, 7-1 on the optimistic side. Everything considered, I want two things this season. A MAC East title & Championship game berth and a win at the Glass Bowl.

149 days, 1 hour and 11 minutes til kickoff at Pitt.

Bring it on...GO FALCONS!!!!!!

Falconfreak90 wrote:I think a 2-2 split in our first 4 would be a good start...

I would call that a GREAT start myself. It all depends on how quickly the new O-line gels IMHO.

I expect a 1-3 start.

Compared to the other schedules, I have no complaints about ours. Seeing as how our guys don't have any back-to-back weeks of away games, that means that there's a home game or a bye week every other week. Unlike some teams who have a 3 or 4 week stretch of away games, I really can't complain about it. So with that in mind, GO FALCONS!! BEAT PITT!!

Redwingtom wrote:

Falconfreak90 wrote:I think a 2-2 split in our first 4 would be a good start...

I would call that a GREAT start myself.

I would too. Pitt will be a very tough game, and it is nearly impossible to win in Boise. It would be a shame if we didn't win when we finally get a B11 team in our house, but as others have said Minnesota will be a much better team. They'll also be looking for some payback.

1-3 with some respectable losses would give me hope for the MAC season. If we win at Boise or Pitt, there's no way we shouldn't win the MAC.

Redwingtom wrote:

Falconfreak90 wrote:I think a 2-2 split in our first 4 would be a good start...

I would call that a GREAT start myself. It all depends on how quickly the new O-line gels IMHO.

I expect a 1-3 start.

Tom,

Spot on about the OLine...but I still expect us to win 2 of 4. Some may say that is unrealstic but I don't. Just because Pitt played a great game vs WVU doesn't take away the fact they weren't very good the rest of the year. Same with MN...they have a solid recruiting class coming in. Great. They were 1-11 last year and this is our home opener. We always talk about how we want BG to be one of the best mid majors out there. Well, expect to win these types of games.

Boise State is loaded again and will be a very difficult game...plus, they have an off week before we play them.

The bottom line for me is winning the MAC title in 2008...

I love the falcons but ... This kid RB, LeSean McCoy could run for 300 plus on our small "D" and might score 4 touchdowns Pitt does have to pass more than 5 times to win this game...

60yearsofsicsic wrote:I love the falcons but ... This kid RB, LeSean McCoy could run for 300 plus on our small "D" and might score 4 touchdowns Pitt does have to pass more than 5 times to win this game...

Sure that could happen...and maybe it won't. All I'm saying is BG is good enough to beat Pitt.

Put me with Freak in not being overly enamored with Pitt. Yeah, they've got some talent, and yeah they won a big game against WVU, but on the whole they weren't that impressive last year. They're still led by Dave Wannstedt, and he hasn't had much success there.

It'll be a tough game, for sure, but I would not be surprised at all to see us win.

Minny was awful last year, and I don't care how many JuCos they bring in this year, I expect to beat them at the Doyt. I don't care what conference they play in, the plain & simple truth is that we're a better football program than Minnesota.

I don't know much about Wyoming, and Boise is always a tough as nails road game. Still, I at least 1-3 from those games, and I'll be pretty disappointed if we don't win 2 of them. This team should be ready to win this year, and these are the types of teams we should be beating if we want to gain any respect. 2 solid nonBCS teams, 1 lousy BCS team, and 1 "up & coming" BCS team. I don't think it's too much to ask of this group to play .500 ball against those 4.

Well, let me say first that I don't think we will win at Boise. Boise hasn't lost at home in what, 10 billion years? I don't think they are about to start now, unfortunately. If the game was at the Doyt, I'd give us the edge, but nobody ever wins at Boise. Wyoming, from what I know has a good defense but a poor offense. If that's true then we should see a very intriguing matchup there. That's a game though, that I think we have a better than 50/50 shot of winning, maybe about 60/40. Minnesota we should lay the wood to. We're starting to recover our home field advantage at the Doyt after two years of suffering defeats at home. I expect us to come out fired up and ready to lay the wood.

Pitt is the hardest game to call because like us, they are so inconsistent. What we do know is that if they can't run the ball, they suck. So if we play a decent game of slowing the run game and not turning the ball over, I think we've got a good shot against Pittsburgh. My guess is that we'll probably lose that one, but it'll be a good game.

Wyoming - Wyoming started really hot last year and fizzled. They had just about a 1000 yard rusher, but their passing game wasn't good at all. Their defense was normally pretty good with one ugly 50-0 loss to Utah, but in every other loss the opposing team didn't score that much. The biggest trick with Wyoming, though, is home field advantage. Their stadium has the highest elevation of any collegiate stadium in the country, and that worries me a lot. As anybody who has ran in New Mexico or Colorado can tell you, it slows you down a lot. I see issues with the receivers running out of gas in that one - I really feel we need to pound the ball through the middle up in that elevation.

MarkL wrote:Wyoming - Wyoming started really hot last year and fizzled. They had just about a 1000 yard rusher, but their passing game wasn't good at all. Their defense was normally pretty good with one ugly 50-0 loss to Utah, but in every other loss the opposing team didn't score that much. The biggest trick with Wyoming, though, is home field advantage. Their stadium has the highest elevation of any collegiate stadium in the country, and that worries me a lot. As anybody who has ran in New Mexico or Colorado can tell you, it slows you down a lot. I see issues with the receivers running out of gas in that one - I really feel we need to pound the ball through the middle up in that elevation.

That is a good point about the elevation. Do you go out a day or two earlier than normal to get better acclimated?

I always expect BG to win every game. Is it realistic? Probably not, but I have high expectations for this team every year. If you aren't playing to win every game, why even play any games?

We will be bigger, faster and stronger this year. Our underclassmen have another year of seasoning. Our running game looks to be solid, our passing game will be solid and our defense can't play any worse than they did in Mobile....