REALISTIC expectations for 2023 football season

[loyalson4evatru]

Anywhere from 0-12 to 6-6. Magic could happen and we do better. Optimist until the last horn sounds. If we go 3-9 or worse is CMC in the hot seat? His stock has already plummeted and May decline further. Who knows. I want the Clones to win - but the team has to as well! Been a rough 50 years of cheering for my beloved Clones. Nutcup is close at hand!

5 straight bowls. highest draft picks and most NFL players in ISU history. just signed arguably highest QB recruit in program history. CMC is huge reason for Jack Trice and surrounding area improvements. turned down who knows how many higher profile programs and twice the salary.

he'd need at least 2 more seasons of 4 or less wins for that seat to even get warm.

and even then, the day CMC ever leaves will be a terrible day for ISU football and us fans.

 

[MartyFine]

 

[werdnamanhill]

We may not win 10 games haha, but we are sure gonna surprise a lot of people methinks

 

[clonedude]

2023 ISU football expectations:

pain.

but seriously i think Norton and OL coach are a key to winning 6+ games. can we get back to a physical run game? wear teams down in 2nd half. shorten the game keep our D fresh.

remember clock runs on 1st downs this year. if can run the ball you can shorten games.

QB just has to be a game manager, don't need 300 yds. play action. use the TEs. scramble when needed don't force any throws.

could resemble more of the Rhoads type teams. 2009 kind of team might be best version to hope for this year. Arnaud was a game manager. ARob carried the load. relied on defense and running the ball. 7-6

Good point on the clock changes. How many less possessions will there be do you think?

 

[madguy30]

I will be cheering for Oregon State from afar to make some real noise amid all the realignment crap.

 

[Statefan10]

Anywhere from 0-12 to 6-6. Magic could happen and we do better. Optimist until the last horn sounds. If we go 3-9 or worse is CMC in the hot seat? His stock has already plummeted and May decline further. Who knows. I want the Clones to win - but the team has to as well! Been a rough 50 years of cheering for my beloved Clones. Nutcup is close at hand!

? I'm pretty sure they want to win...

 

[madguy30]

? I'm pretty sure they want to win...

A favorite post last basketball season was when someone said an ISU player really should have hit a 3 when it missed.

So I had to wonder if there's people out there that think the players choose whether or not they make shots.

 

[loyalson4evatru]

Good point on the clock changes. How many less possessions will there be do you think?

they project 8 less plays per game but if you are actually using it as a strategy to shorten the game, seems to me some teams will find it very impactful.

if a ball control type team (i.e. ISU...Iowa..KSt...) you might have 12 play 78 yd drives where you pick up 5 1st downs. instead of that being a 6 min drive, that could easily be 8 mins now.

it will absolutely change outcomes of games and if you like a team's run game and defense i'd bet heavy on those teams and the unders until LV adjusts lines accordingly.

 

[CyPack]

How is it asinine when we are coming off back to back seasons of severely underperforming expectations and being a competitive train wreck? Even though we've won some of those games where teams were more talented in the past we've still lost more than we've won.

How the **** is that? You mean using recent history, personnel losses (Dekkers, Hutch, Will, Remsburg, Lee and Brock), and common sense should be overridden by your rainbows and butterflies prognostications? You aren't using any logic, are conveniently ignoring several facts, while spouting bs that doesn't make sense.

Yes. Teams lose talented players all the time. We agree on that. But few teams, let alone teams at Iowa State, have a bad team, lose 2 of the best players in history, lose 3-4 starters (unexpectedly) during the summer, AND have holes up and down the lineup and magically become better. Possible? Sure, anything is. But to expect it, let alone have problems with far more sensible takes is laughable.

Hey everyone, bet the over on ISU's win total. Statefan10 has a good feeling without sound rationale to back it up!

I wouldn't necessarily say we have holes up and down the lineup, thats a bit of an exaggeration. Are there some holes to fill, yes. But there is plenty of talent to replace those that are no longer here. Also, the players we lost wern't necessarily all american type guys, maybe some would have been beaten out at some point regardless.

 

[cyclones500]

A favorite post last basketball season was when someone said an ISU player really should have hit a 3 when it missed.

So I had to wonder if there's people out there that think the players choose whether or not they make shots.

It's forgivable if a player misses a shot, as long as he WANTS to make it.

 

[ZRF]

I wouldn't necessarily say we have holes up and down the lineup, thats a bit of an exaggeration. Are there some holes to fill, yes. But there is plenty of talent to replace those that are no longer here. Also, the players we lost wern't necessarily all american type guys, maybe some would have been beaten out at some point regardless.

When you lack proven commodities at multiple positional groups that = multiple holes until proven otherwise. The receiver group was underwhelming outside of X and it's a bit optimistic to say it's MORE likely it's a good group rather than a subpar group (what it was last year). Diddo for RB, LB, OL, QB, and TE. That's not to say those groups will necessarily be bad or subpar, rather it's likely those groups play closer to what they were last year rather than magically turning it around.

When you are a 1 win conference team that lost 2 of it's best players in history you have LOTS of holes until proven differently.

 

[cyclones500]

My outlook (or ceiling) for ISU this season is modest, but at worst I'd place us in the "lucky to make a bowl" category.

 

[RagingCloner]

When you lack proven commodities at multiple positional groups that = multiple holes until proven otherwise. The receiver group was underwhelming outside of X and it's a bit optimistic to say it's MORE likely it's a good group rather than a subpar group (what it was last year). Diddo for RB, LB, OL, QB, and TE. That's not to say those groups will necessarily be bad or subpar, rather it's likely those groups play closer to what they were last year rather than magically turning it around.

When you are a 1 win conference team that lost 2 of it's best players in history you have LOTS of holes until proven differently.

This is a really good take. However, from what I’ve heard and seen, the guys who will be considered “replacements” have a higher floor than the ones last year. Aside from X and McDonald. Now, that’s hearsay and speculation. We went into last year thinking that team had a high floor too, and turns out only the defense did

 

[clonedude]

Is Noah Shannon going to be allowed to play in games while he is appealing his year long suspension?

 

[1UNI2ISU]

Is Noah Shannon going to be allowed to play in games while he is appealing his year long suspension?

Nope. He's out unless the suspension gets overturned or shortened.

 

[MartyFine]

When you lack proven commodities at multiple positional groups that = multiple holes until proven otherwise. The receiver group was underwhelming outside of X and it's a bit optimistic to say it's MORE likely it's a good group rather than a subpar group (what it was last year). Diddo for RB, LB, OL, QB, and TE. That's not to say those groups will necessarily be bad or subpar, rather it's likely those groups play closer to what they were last year rather than magically turning it around.

When you are a 1 win conference team that lost 2 of its tscbest players in history you have LOTS of holes until proven differently.

It’s OK to admit that ISU is going to lose to UNI

 

[dafarmer]

Nm state done!

 

[Frak]

A lot of the reaction had to do with the plethora of comments/prognostications (not necessarily you) that were not only unreasonably optimistic but took issue with lower win totals that were easily justifiable.

I like to look at it this way. Of all the units, and all of the facets of the team that we "thought" were going to be improved, how many times has that actually happened (under Campbell no less)? Speaking personally, I thought the OL was going to be better (than the year before) the last two years and that was a combination of (perceived) talent (sometimes returning talent) and the presence of Andrews, one I thought was going to be a difference maker. There's been a lot of hype about the WR group and certain receivers which has rarely panned out. There's eternal hope for STs but that never pans out.

With Iowa State it's hard to count on any one positional group until the unit actually proves themselves. I'm hopeful yet it's crazy to me to look at what we've done the last two years, look at the players we've lost from those teams, look at what we have left and see a .500 or above team. Realistically I think the league (as a whole) will be tougher (doubt we will see KU be as competitive as a result) while this team has a LOT of holes on paper. Using ISU's history (under Campbell) as well as recent history (last two years) I don't see enough rainbows, unicorns, and Scotch tape to where this is a good team. I think the odds are much better for 2024 being a 9 win, reasonable best case scenario team.

Getting close to that this year would mean EVERYTHING has to go right. It can, but history and common sense dictates it's unlikely. But yeah, the one thing we all have in common is hoping for a 9-12 win season, whether it can happen or not.

Personally, I don't think that everything has to go right or perfect to get to 6-6. Just a couple of things. OL and TEs have to help get some kind of running game together and K can't be missing short FGs. That's it. Yeah, the schedule is tough. But it's tough because there aren't bad teams dragging it down. It's not because there's a murderers row of top 10 teams. There's just a bunch of teams at our level or a little better. A LOT of winnable games if we actually do the little things right and not shoot ourselves in the foot...which would be a first for Campbell teams I'll admit.

Now, getting to 9-3, yeah, everything would have to go right and probably better than we could have hoped.

 

[werdnamanhill]

Personally, I don't think that everything has to go right or perfect to get to 6-6. Just a couple of things. OL and TEs have to help get some kind of running game together and K can't be missing short FGs. That's it. Yeah, the schedule is tough. But it's tough because there aren't bad teams dragging it down. It's not because there's a murderers row of top 10 teams. There's just a bunch of teams at our level or a little better. A LOT of winnable games if we actually do the little things right and not shoot ourselves in the foot...which would be a first for Campbell teams I'll admit.

Now, getting to 9-3, yeah, everything would have to go right and probably better than we could have hoped.

I'd argue 2017 and 2020 we won in the margins and didn't shoot ourselves in the foot.
I'll exclude 2016 for obvious reasons, but 2018 was pretty decent as well.

2019, 2021, and 2022 we definitely didn't do the little things right at all.

I don't really disagree with your overall point at all, but I just wanted to point out that Campbell has in fact had teams that practiced what he preached.

 

[Frak]

I'd argue 2017 and 2020 we won in the margins and didn't shoot ourselves in the foot.
I'll exclude 2016 for obvious reasons, but 2018 was pretty decent as well.

2019, 2021, and 2022 we definitely didn't do the little things right at all.

I don't really disagree with your overall point at all, but I just wanted to point out that Campbell has in fact had teams that practiced what he preached.

I don't disagree on 2017. I mean, there were some games like Park vs UT that we did some dumb ****. But after Kempt got in, we pretty much maximized everything. 2020, I don't know that I agree. ST lost us the Louisiana game. ST basically lost us the B12 title game. A good kicker and good ST coverage would have gotten us a title and likely a playoff berth.