They're really a lot like 2012 ND

by Mike (bart), Tuesday, July 30, 2013, 12:33 (3916 days ago) @ Jay

Except for the fact that they're looking to be pretty pedestrian at DL. And Don't look great at LB. And have a ton of questions at RB. Thankfully for them their TE entering this season (Funchess) has put up much more ipressive numbers than Eifert had entering 2012.

I just don't see them as very frightening. Of course, we could very well still lose to them, but I think we could win by 17 just as easily. At no point in the Hoke Era have they looked like a Team You Really Don't Want to Play.™ They put a pretty good beating on a humdrum Nebraska team a couple of seasons ago, but beyond that their most impressive showings of the past couple of seasons are probably the losses to ND and South Carolina last season.

It's great for them that Hoke is recruiting so well (like Kevin, I do think Hoke is probably a pretty good guy), but they strike me as capping out at that notch between Nebraska (just to the plus side of 'decent') and OSU (nationally relevant).

I think they'll lose 3-4 games (hopefully including ND). I think at best they're a fringe BCS outfit.