re: Convince me Ole Miss can win 8 games

The schedule is front loaded, which helps a bit-- you want the best teams you play to still be figuring things out a bit rather than hitting full stride.

Ole Miss has a pretty huge advantage with a proven QB, over many of the folks on their schedule-- and CK played his absolute best football the back half of last year, showing real progress. That's trouble, if he's that consistent right out of the gate this year.

On the other side of the ball, I thought at times they got ND- obsessed, in terms of scheming to get him one on one match ups. I think they're less talented, but more schematically sound when they didn't play him-- and there will be the nice bonus of not missing him for half a loss because he took a handoff and was concussed.

Record wise, they should regress a little, just from the matchups home/road. I don't expect it to slip that much, though. 8 or 9 wins is very doable.