Fox Sports: Stew Mandel & Bruce Feldman Big Ten Predictions

[NUinID]

Feldman said in their podcast he has us losing to BYU out of the gate.

This I don't get, Hill is a very good QB if he is 100% healthy, which we don't know if he is or not. Lets assume he is though, he doesn't really have a lot of skill guys surrounding him that anyone would consider a game changer. There defense last year was pretty bad should be somewhat better, but I don't know?

I guess I have a different view of BYU. Living in Idaho, with our Mormon population I get a lot BYU news. Hill is actually from Idaho. None of the news guys around here are expecting BYU to be some juggernaut that is a dark horse to make the playoffs. Most of the talk is if Hill is actually healthy or if they are just blowing smoke up are asses.

 

[StPaulHusker]

To be fair to Mandel, he isn't expecting much bigger things with Michigan and their second coming of Schembechler either.

 

[MichiganDad3]

The QB position doesn't worry me. If TA cannot make the correct reads, Darlington seems to be capable.

 

[Army_Allen]

Curiousity, does Taylor Martinez at the helm raise or lower your prediction on our win total with Riley at HC?

2011 Taylor would be lower, and 2012 would probably be the same as Tommy.

Interesting. I'm of the belief that a healthy freshman or junior TMart would have us in a better position than we're in now but that's just me. He's a better runner and he's had better accuracy ratings than Tommy through their first 2 years. Jmo

 

[Mierin]

Curiousity, does Taylor Martinez at the helm raise or lower your prediction on our win total with Riley at HC?

2011 Taylor would be lower, and 2012 would probably be the same as Tommy.

Interesting. I'm of the belief that a healthy freshman or junior TMart would have us in a better position than we're in now but that's just me. He's a better runner and he's had better accuracy ratings than Tommy through their first 2 years. Jmo

It's not just you. There are a lot of insane people out there who horribly misremember Martinez's time here. He made 10% more of his throws and had a take it to the house ability that Armstrong lacks. I would feel much, much more confident if it was him, regardless of which "year" of him it is.
That being said I don't think Armstrong is terrible and I have hope he can improve.

 

[NUinID]

Curiousity, does Taylor Martinez at the helm raise or lower your prediction on our win total with Riley at HC?

2011 Taylor would be lower, and 2012 would probably be the same as Tommy.

Interesting. I'm of the belief that a healthy freshman or junior TMart would have us in a better position than we're in now but that's just me. He's a better runner and he's had better accuracy ratings than Tommy through their first 2 years. Jmo

It's not just you. There are a lot of insane people out there who horribly misremember Martinez's time here. He made 10% more of his throws and had a take it to the house ability that Armstrong lacks. I would feel much, much more confident if it was him, regardless of which "year" of him it is.
That being said I don't think Armstrong is terrible and I have hope he can improve.

Sometimes I think we are pretty hard on TA also. I have always thought Conner Cook was a really good QB. I had never really looked at his stats before. His stats for last year are really only slightly better than TA's. Yardage is about the same. CC completion % is only slightly better at 57%. His TD/Int ratio was quite a bit better though. Yet, on Todd McShay's way too early draft board he is listed #2 overall behind Christian Hackenburg, who's stats from last year are lousy.

I think he can improve a lot this year, get to that magic 60% and keep improving the TD/int ratio to about 2.5 to 1 and you will have a good QB.

 

[Wordek]

We will go undefeated regular season.

 

[deedsker]

Curiousity, does Taylor Martinez at the helm raise or lower your prediction on our win total with Riley at HC?

2011 Taylor would be lower, and 2012 would probably be the same as Tommy.

Interesting. I'm of the belief that a healthy freshman or junior TMart would have us in a better position than we're in now but that's just me. He's a better runner and he's had better accuracy ratings than Tommy through their first 2 years. Jmo

It's not just you. There are a lot of insane people out there who horribly misremember Martinez's time here. He made 10% more of his throws and had a take it to the house ability that Armstrong lacks. I would feel much, much more confident if it was him, regardless of which "year" of him it is.
That being said I don't think Armstrong is terrible and I have hope he can improve.

I would take uninjured freshamn TMart in a heart beat over a lot of quarterbacks. The guy didn't even need to throw the ball very well to make defenses look silly.

Post injury, any year TMart, ehhh...

 

[BIGREDIOWAN]

It's hard to say what's going to happen. I'm not expecting us to win 9+ games with us transitioning to the Mike Riley era at this point. I think there are some guys being overlooked on the defense, but there are definitely concerns coming into this season sprinkled throughout the team.

 

[cg_8]

Writer's annoy me to the point of it being incredibly unreasonable on my part. I totally get it, it's their job. But I can tell you that they know no more than you and I at this point.

I'd believe the writer who said "Watch out for Auburn this year, they are really going to turn it around" back in 2013. Or the one who said "Texas is really going to blow this year" back in 2010. All pre-season of course.

Other than that, right now, it's just all overgeneralized statements. "Nebraska could be 3-4..." is stupid. If Nebraska is 3-4, than they probably end up going 6-6, losing to MSU, as well as Northwestern. Because that 3-4 team probably isn't good enough to beat Northwestern, who has generally played decent against us. Look at the schedule and understand what a true 3-4 Nebraska team will be. Don't just generally state "3-4, then loss to MSU, end of story".

9-3 seems to be the safe bet. I'm feeling this myself, but we don't know.

As I said, writers drive me nuts. Pre-season crap drives me even more nuts. And it's unreasonable on my part. I should love the fact that writers cover college football! I should eat it up! And I probably do more often than I'd like to admit, but that doesn't mean I want to punch these guys sometimes.

 

[NUinID]

Writer's annoy me to the point of it being incredibly unreasonable on my part. I totally get it, it's their job. But I can tell you that they know no more than you and I at this point.

I'd believe the writer who said "Watch out for Auburn this year, they are really going to turn it around" back in 2013. Or the one who said "Texas is really going to blow this year" back in 2010. All pre-season of course.

Other than that, right now, it's just all overgeneralized statements. "Nebraska could be 3-4..." is stupid. If Nebraska is 3-4, than they probably end up going 6-6, losing to MSU, as well as Northwestern. Because that 3-4 team probably isn't good enough to beat Northwestern, who has generally played decent against us. Look at the schedule and understand what a true 3-4 Nebraska team will be. Don't just generally state "3-4, then loss to MSU, end of story".

9-3 seems to be the safe bet. I'm feeling this myself, but we don't know.

As I said, writers drive me nuts. Pre-season crap drives me even more nuts. And it's unreasonable on my part. I should love the fact that writers cover college football! I should eat it up! And I probably do more often than I'd like to admit, but that doesn't mean I want to punch these guys sometimes.

Very well put, that is kind of my point, does Mandel really look at Nebraska and the teams we are playing and say these teams X, Y, and Z are on paper are better than Nebraska. I mean look at the talent each team has back and look at how each team has recruited and go from there. I guess he really feels the coaching change is a huge factor in his thinking. I just don't see it.

 

[RedRedJarvisRedwine]

Is Stewart Mandel the one that hosts Deal or No Deal? Stay in your lane buddy!