re: 11-1 is VERY possible

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Personally...I think our defense is a little better than theirs

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This is one of those things that's often brought up but has very little relevance. The only matchups that matter (unless you're talking about what they practice against...) are our D vs their O and vice versa. I don't really know if we'll have good insight on our D vs a more traditional pocket passer before that game other than Mizzou who seems to be phoning it in by now... particularly with Del Rio going out for the season now. Vandy's offense looks awful and USC lost their best player, so we may not have a good barometer as to how we'll handle Stidham prior to that game. I still have a ton of confidence in this defense and feel that would be a plus matchup for us.

Our O vs their D becomes the bigger question mark... They look stout. That's likely the matchup that dictates the game... I can't imagine currently our defense giving up more than maybe 20 points to their offense and that's being generous... can we figure out a way to put up 25+ on Auburn? If so, it should take care of itself.

Ultimately, it matters very little... if you want to play hypotheticals, we could lose that matchup, and as long as we win all of our East matchups, we go to Atlanta, and then face the likely winner between Bama and Auburn... so either we get the current king of the SEC or we get a rematch depending on the outcome of the Iron Bowl... Smart just needs the team to TCOB against what appears to be a dilapidated remaining East schedule (SC/UF both now missing key players, Vandy exposed on offense, and UK more of a ? than anything right now) and the rest will sort itself out.

since last season, when have we played a triple option team?

Also, there are many things that we can do better such as being more physical with wide receivers, being more physical at the point of attack on the LOS.

Don't get me wrong, I believe our defense is the strength of the team but who have we played. And until we play Bama we won't play great offensive football team.

Tech has athletes but that offense is hard to stop for three reasons:
1. They chop block extremely well
2. Their Scheme challenges your fundamentals and they inentionally leave your guys unblocked.
3. You don't coach the kids to play against it until that one week of the season.

Auburn will be lucky to score 10 points against us. Pettway is okay but not a great game changing back and our defense will be very hard to matchup with if we stay healthy.

Notre Dame has great numbers against crappy teams. Who have they beat and scored a lot on that's legit? Miami of Ohio and Temple?

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Not too worried about the Gators. They've played like shite this year and they just lost their QB.

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As snakebitten as we've been against Florida over the last 30 years, they could have to field a team composed of the flute section from their band and a bunch of people selected at random from the crowd, and it still wouldn't be a guaranteed win.

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but who have we played.

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This is always relative to how strong your team is. Alabama, in their mind only plays 1 or 2 games a year, because nobody looks good compared to them.

Notre Dame has a good shot at winning 9-10 games this year with an outside chance of winning 11.
We could have/should have put up another 20 or so points on them.

But, I do agree, that we really will not face a really good offensive team this year during the regular season.

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Auburn will be lucky to score 10 points against us. Pettway is okay but not a great game changing back and our defense will be very hard to matchup with if we stay healthy.

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It's not their running game I'm worried about. It's the fact that Stidham is starting too heat up a bit.

On swing at a time.

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Sorry,I think GT is a very good offensive team but let's see how they against Miami and Clemson.
We'll know for sure .

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To your point, they typically do put up a lot of yards and points, so from that standpoint, I would say you are right.

I played in a veer offense, which is an option type offense, and if your players play disciplined defense and stay with their responsibilities, it is an offense that can look very, very bad. This team seems to play with a lot of discipline.

However, I would have to agree with your assessment, that GT typically has a good offense. I would prefer to see us play a more balanced offense. (Although, it seems I read somewhere where GT is trying to throw the ball a bit more, so this might be the year.)

If we can't beat the fumble bug, we're not going to do much of anything worth a damn against better defenses. Miami will be our first real test against a defense worth a shite. You saw how turnovers killed us against that bunch of idiots at Tennessee.

I don't think there's one way, but I will say we've been eating up defenses with our midline dive this year.