In almost every case - on a "fan board" like this one (for any team, not just Arkansas) - the pre-season predictions you see are "best case scenarios" - not what is MOST likely to happen.
You will see people either going through the roster and commenting on various parts of the team (OL, RB, Linebackers, etc.) ; or, stepping through each game on the schedule, and the "summary" is almost always a "glass is 3/4 full" version of what reality is. A common phrase in these pre-season predictions is "if everything goes right, we can . . . ".
And, it's easy to understand how that happens. Viewed independently, it's not hard for an optimistic fan to talk him/herself into believing (for example) that we WILL find a WR that will be able to get some separation and consistently catch the ball (something we didn't really do all of last year). After all, we now have Reed and Jojo (highly touted, but unproved at this level), plus several of our other non-effective players return from last year, and there is hope that someone among them will improve.
Could that happen? Sure, it could. It would not be stunning if it did. But, neither would it be shocking of our WR corps. was about the same as it was last year.
Same could be said about the other key question marks surrounding our team (or others). Will the replacements we have for (a) Spaight (b) Flowers (c) Philon be good enough to keep our defense from regressing? Sure; at this time last year, we didn't really know that Philon would be as good as he was last year (though he had shown promise as a RS freshman), and we surely didn't know about Spaight. And, the replacements appear to have really good potential. But, again, we won't know until we see them on the field in extended roles this fall.
And so on, for questions at RB depth (especially if either Williams or AC go down with an injury), our new LB configuration (moving Brooks to Spaight's old position, etc.), placekicker, punter and safety. And then, there are non-personnel questions . . . have we finally turned the corner and learned how to close out wins (looked like it late in the year - although we did let Mizzou slip away in the same manner we lost several games earlier in the year)? How will our funky schedule (only SEC team to have two trips of back-to-back conference road games; no home SEC game until late October) affect us? What happens to us if Brandon Allen goes down (i.e., do we have anyone behind him at QB ready to win)?
That's at least a half-dozen (more like 10) questions that need to be answered in a positive manner for us to be as good as we'd have to be to have a "special" season this year. In most cases, no one would be surprised if the answer to any of those individual questions/issues turned out positively for us this fall. However, if - say - we get 5 "good" answers, and 5 "no-so-good" results, will that be good enough for us to make much improvement? Probably not. In fact, we probably need "good" results from most of the above areas; "failure" in more than one or two dramatically limits our chance for an outstanding season.
Let's say, optimistically, that the odds of any one of those issues resolving positively is 70%. In reality, it is very likely that each has it's own separate probability of "success", ranging from something like 20% to 80%. But, for the sake of discussion, let's say they are all the same - and at an optimistic level. If we say that we've got a good chance for a special year if we get positive answers to 8 of the 10 questions (again, for example), then probability and statistics theory tell us we have about a 1 in 3 chance of that happening.
But, as we know from experience, a few of these things most likely have less than a 70% chance of "success". IMO, again for example, I'd say the odds of our replacements for Flowers/Philon/Spaight being as good are about 50-50. Odds that we get through the season without losing either AC or Williams to injury for at least a few games? I'd say 50-50 on that, as well. Chance that we can survive a pair of back-to-back SEC road games with less than one loss? 30-40%, IMO. Plug a few of those %'s in (instead of the optimistic 70%), and the odds of "if everything goes right" nosedives dramatically, to well under 10%.
Bottom line - all teams have question marks. It's the ones who get positive answers to most of their questions that end up at the top by season's end. And, the shorter the list of questions, the better the odds (usually) that you get most of the resolved positively = have a championship season.
You will see people either going through the roster and commenting on various parts of the team (OL, RB, Linebackers, etc.) ; or, stepping through each game on the schedule, and the "summary" is almost always a "glass is 3/4 full" version of what reality is. A common phrase in these pre-season predictions is "if everything goes right, we can . . . ".
And, it's easy to understand how that happens. Viewed independently, it's not hard for an optimistic fan to talk him/herself into believing (for example) that we WILL find a WR that will be able to get some separation and consistently catch the ball (something we didn't really do all of last year). After all, we now have Reed and Jojo (highly touted, but unproved at this level), plus several of our other non-effective players return from last year, and there is hope that someone among them will improve.
Could that happen? Sure, it could. It would not be stunning if it did. But, neither would it be shocking of our WR corps. was about the same as it was last year.
Same could be said about the other key question marks surrounding our team (or others). Will the replacements we have for (a) Spaight (b) Flowers (c) Philon be good enough to keep our defense from regressing? Sure; at this time last year, we didn't really know that Philon would be as good as he was last year (though he had shown promise as a RS freshman), and we surely didn't know about Spaight. And, the replacements appear to have really good potential. But, again, we won't know until we see them on the field in extended roles this fall.
And so on, for questions at RB depth (especially if either Williams or AC go down with an injury), our new LB configuration (moving Brooks to Spaight's old position, etc.), placekicker, punter and safety. And then, there are non-personnel questions . . . have we finally turned the corner and learned how to close out wins (looked like it late in the year - although we did let Mizzou slip away in the same manner we lost several games earlier in the year)? How will our funky schedule (only SEC team to have two trips of back-to-back conference road games; no home SEC game until late October) affect us? What happens to us if Brandon Allen goes down (i.e., do we have anyone behind him at QB ready to win)?
That's at least a half-dozen (more like 10) questions that need to be answered in a positive manner for us to be as good as we'd have to be to have a "special" season this year. In most cases, no one would be surprised if the answer to any of those individual questions/issues turned out positively for us this fall. However, if - say - we get 5 "good" answers, and 5 "no-so-good" results, will that be good enough for us to make much improvement? Probably not. In fact, we probably need "good" results from most of the above areas; "failure" in more than one or two dramatically limits our chance for an outstanding season.
Let's say, optimistically, that the odds of any one of those issues resolving positively is 70%. In reality, it is very likely that each has it's own separate probability of "success", ranging from something like 20% to 80%. But, for the sake of discussion, let's say they are all the same - and at an optimistic level. If we say that we've got a good chance for a special year if we get positive answers to 8 of the 10 questions (again, for example), then probability and statistics theory tell us we have about a 1 in 3 chance of that happening.
But, as we know from experience, a few of these things most likely have less than a 70% chance of "success". IMO, again for example, I'd say the odds of our replacements for Flowers/Philon/Spaight being as good are about 50-50. Odds that we get through the season without losing either AC or Williams to injury for at least a few games? I'd say 50-50 on that, as well. Chance that we can survive a pair of back-to-back SEC road games with less than one loss? 30-40%, IMO. Plug a few of those %'s in (instead of the optimistic 70%), and the odds of "if everything goes right" nosedives dramatically, to well under 10%.
Bottom line - all teams have question marks. It's the ones who get positive answers to most of their questions that end up at the top by season's end. And, the shorter the list of questions, the better the odds (usually) that you get most of the resolved positively = have a championship season.
