re: Give an honest assessment of your team going into the season

Should be a decent team.

Return a lot of experience at the Linebacker spot, the defensive line should be decent with our 2020 recruits that rotated in last season. Corners are a question mark.

Offensively I feel good about Will Levis at QB, our running back room should be in great shape. Slight concern as the offensive line continues to shuffle and we lost both tackles (All SEC Darian Kinard and Dare "What were you thinking" Rosenthal from last years team. We've got a lot of decent options but inexperience and position shuffle may take longer to gel.

The schedules soft as shite so 9 wins is probable barring a complete meltdown.

Edit to add: I have no idea what to make of the WR position but it honestly can't be any worse

Stout DL, insanely talented WR’s, literal unknown everywhere else.

On paper there is talent, but to promise it comes together is a branch too far for me to proclaim.

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For UGA I'm worried about the Punter. We lost possibly the best one in college football to the draft (yeah, our punter got drafted too) and the new guy looks like a new guy.

Only solution I can think of is for our offense to just not ever get to 4th down outside of FG range.

The rest is all good.

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I worry about punter and NT. I'm sure we will be good at NT. But Jordan Davis was the unicorn. We will have to defend in a completely different manner because he was the cheat code against zone blocking.

Growing pains. Will lose 4 or 5. Likely be competitive in all. Hopefully the recruiting trend continues and the staff is able to implement good habits and systems, pieces are there for a quick 2-3 rebuild to get back to consistent top 10 presence.

Specifically, Oline and Linebacker are going to be hit or miss. Secondary will be better than expected. Dline and Receiver elite, Running back okay. Special teams better than expected. QB will be serviceable, but that is irrelevant if the line sucks, unless the QB has Burrow-like escapability.

Cautiously optimistic. We always have a WTF game like State last year so until we stop doing that you can't discount it happening this year. Our schedule is favorable. A few new faces on the OL and WR seem to be the big ? on offense. I think Tayvion Robinson and Dane Key are going to be just fine at WR, folks will be surprised. Defense, well, I quit worrying about defense since Stoops has been here. He's always found a way to put a quality product out on that side of the ball. I picked us to win 10 games this year. It'll be Kentucky v Georgia again to take the East title. Maybe we can do it this year.

Last week I saw a prediction that had Mississippi State 9-3, 5-3. Later that day I saw one that had them 4-8, 1-7.

A team that was 7-5 last year, beat a couple of decent teams, and returns 17 starters would be called a dark horse to win any other conference. But we live in the SEC West.

Memphis, Arizona, Bowling Green and East Tennessee - Should be a 4-0 non-conference for MSU.

at LSU on September 17 is going to tell us a lot about State. LSU fans will get chippy, but on paper, State is the better team and should win this game. If they do, they will be closer to that 9-3 in the first prediction. If they lose a tight game, we're probably looking at another 6-6/7-5 team. If they get blown out, they will struggle to get to 6 wins.

There's three weeks of tossups mid-season. A&M and Arkansas at home, and at Kentucky. State's not winning in Tuscaloosa, but they get Auburn and Georgia at home late in the season before going to Ole Miss. Mike Leach is the worst Thanksgiving weekend coach in history, so we probably don't win in Oxford.

My prediction: 8-4 and a Big Ten bowl opponent in Florida.

Best case: 10-2 and a NY6 game
Woest case: 5-7

LSU, offensively I think a lot will ride on the QB and OL play. Really talented at the skill positions, but does LSU have a QB that can consistently get the ball to his wideouts, and can the OL give the QB enough time?

Defensively, I think they're going to surprise a lot of people. DL will be nasty, and the secondary I believe is underrated and has some really good pieces. LB play is a question, I think the floor is high there, but the ceiling is unknown. Does Mike Jones live up to the hype he had coming in? Does Harold Perkins take one of the two LBer spots early?

It's impressive the infusion of talent at key positions since Beamer has been at SC, both in traditional recruiting and in the portal. I think the offense has the best collection of skill players since the Hurst/Debo/Edwards/Dowdle group, but now has competent coaching and a skilled qb to make it work.

Defense is a total unknown. DC White made a lot out of very little last year, but linebacker and DT are concerns.

I think SC can be very, very good this year. But I'm thinking 9-3 is best-case.

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The defensive line is loaded with future 1st rounders

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This is what passes for "realistic' down here..."multiple DL first round draft picks?" really? any idea how many teams in CFB history sported "Mutiple first round DL draft picks" on the same team? Heck, why not say the "LSU DL will have four first team all-Americans who will be first round draft picks, lock, and that all will be perennial all-pros."

Im not saying the LSU DL will not be good, it might even be very good (the superlatives for the DL are coming mostly from group-think LSU fans on Tr, not national evaluations). But, it is not realistic to start talking this "multiple first round" non-sense. Point is, it is hard to get purple and gold glasses off this insular, isolated fan base in order to get any realistic look at the upcoming team.

So I'll give my usual negative biased evaluation (i'm also always negative about Alabama for what it's worth). It is hard to judge a completely new team in every respect. I don't ever remember a team more absolutely rebuilt, in the 60-70 years I've been concious about SEC football except maybe when Bryant came to Alabama. I mean rebuilt all the way down to the secretaries, nutrient staff, janitors, not to mention having to collect such a huge number of players and coaches from the wilds.

Given the complete unknown, I think LSU will be overmatched in about four games in conference, and will be 50-50 in the other four. If LSU wins one of the overmatch games and split the 50-50s, result could be 6-6 to 7-5 year depending on the bounce of the ball and the result of the FSU game... and that will be a good result for a first year. Remember Saban's first year at Alabama and Bryant's first year too.

Remember we are talking "realistic.." are we not?