football standard of acceptable performance

[SisyphusMiner]

With the pre-season pick'em available, that is a reasonable proxy for what people expect.  But I am interested in what the threshold for number of wins is for unacceptable performance? 

[Chanson]

I entered 4. I struggled between that & 5. To get win in a rebuild year for The Power 5 schools should be lower. For our conference, we are dealing with unproven coaching & players. Great coaching & motivation goes a long way with our conference. Just ask Price. His issue was he couldn't recruit & things declined.

[UTEPDefense]

For this particular year, I placed 1 win as unacceptably low, simply because if we only win 1 game this year, then that means that we either lost at home to NMSU or we lost at home to an FCS school.  Generally speaking, our program should always be better than that.

[liebestraum]

I selected 1 win for pretty much the same reason Defense did.  I will say the game against Northern Arizona could be unexpectedly tough.  They play in the Big Sky Conference and are used to playing against very good FCS teams such as Eastern Washington and Montana.  They’ve also been to the FCS playoffs.  So, while they are not an upper-tier FCS school such as North Dakota State, James Madison, or Sam Houston State, they’ll present a challenge.

It should be easy enough to beat last year’s win total (heh), and UTEP might win as many as five games - a new coach and a new attitude sometimes helps (ignore the Tommy Hudspeth debacle from the 1970’s).  But a one-win season would not be a promising start.

lieb

[kyyote]

I struggled with the question.  UTEP AVERAGES about two wins a season for 60 years and it has become what we have to accept.  That is unacceptable but it is what we have accepted forever.  So, if we win four games it is twice as many as what is "accepted" for UTEP football.  The leaders at UTEP seem to be of the mind that not winning at all is acceptable, so I guess the question is to whom you ask and how you define acceptable.  Oliver Twist accepted one bowl but wanted more.  We have accepted what we are given.  We want more.  I will accept what is given.  I have become very accustomed to accepting what crumbs I am given.  What I want is very different.  Maybe it is a question of reality.  We have accepted for the 60 years I know about.  No wins last year was accepted as just another UTEP football season.  Losing has become entirely acceptable at UTEP.  It is not just acceptable, it is expected.  We expect to lose 8 to 10 games this year.  Well, not me.  I expect to win.  I will accept whatever I get.  We are UTEP!  We accept nothing and politely say, "Thank you".

[Austintacious]

We need another Johnny Lee Higgins to catch and run for TDs.  Our receivers quality needs to improve.   

[kyyote]

I wonder if we have any.  Kugler had no use for a receiver except for blocking.  Any receiver that was into catching passes didn't want to play at UTEP.  He will have to recruit them from scratch.

[SisyphusMiner]

A good enough QB makes his receiver's life a lot easier and makes them look good by putting the ball in the right place.  It takes two, and I don't think we have had a QB that could do that for some while.

I selected one win as my threshold.  i don't think its fair to expect much in year one for the new coach.  Yes, he may win some by simply motivating the young men to believe in themselves and him, but damn.  Kug's comment on the dumpster fire turned out to be prophetic of what he would leave more than descriptive of what he found.