Did we not lose anyone the year before? Did that stop fans from expecting a natty?
Teams lose two DL , part of the OL and part of the secondary EVERY year. The new QB has been with the coach for 4 years.
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Your way too early season prediction?
- Thread starter Nitt1300
- Start date
Did we not lose anyone the year before? Did that stop fans from expecting a natty?
Teams lose two DL , part of the OL and part of the secondary EVERY year. The new QB has been with the coach for 4 years.
Athlon sports has the B1G like this:
Tier 1
Ohio State
Oregon
Tier 2
Michigan
USC
Penn State
Washington
That is about right. We dodge both Tier 1 teams. People predicting 7 wins are still sore about their golden boy being fired. Move on.
Players coming off injuries have to be factored in as well. Like, our starting OT, starting safety, two starting LB and our starting TE won't see snaps in Spring practice. The starting QB will be limited with his injuries and may get snaps at the end of Spring ball. There's injuries all over the team. So much so MC said he doesn't even know what the BW game will look like. It could get ugly, even with the soft schedule.
Perhaps we should wait for the Blue-White Game before offering predictions.
I think the team was going to struggle this season even if the golden boy wasn't fired. He went all in with retaining those players last year that are now out of eligibility while struggling with recruiting the past couple of years. Unless he was going to hit the portal hard and not strike out on the players (see 2025 WR room), this was probably going to be a 9-3 season anyway.
I would be disappointed with 8-4. There is too much talent that remained @ PSU and transferred in for this team to lose 4 games. I have confidence that this staff can mesh the players into an excellent team. Not expecting an undefeated season. I think the floor is 9-3 and ceiling 10-2.
So you think Campbell's team will struggle?
Should you let your 4th and 5th year players walk? Is that your plan?
Golden boy is gone yet your predictions are for less wins??? What happened to the cignetti model? I guess culture only gets you so far.
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I hope not but 2 of our starting linebackers are coming off serious knee injuries and Franklin ignored that room the past couple of cycles recruiting so it's very thin. That's just one example at one position. I'm not sure of the guys transferring in because they've never played B1G football.
He paid big money to retain those 4th and 5th year starters. Did we really need to pay top dollar to 2 RB when the money for one of them could've been used to sure up the LB room with better recruits?
You have to back fill the roster, not just spend all of your money on starters to keep them from leaving. Again, he went all in on the 2025 team and it came back and bit him.
If it was so bad then why did the fans expect a natty?
Now that the team is doing things the right way shouldn't you predict more wins?
The ISU golden boy brought three starting LBs with him from ISU. Remember the cignetti model? No excuse for the LB position.
Did we need to pay two RBs? Actually yes. Two is not even enough. In 1994 the team had 5 RBs drafted. In 2012 the 5th string RB was the starter by week 4 after the first four were ALL hurt. Did you expect to go the season with ONE RB? Show us your post from before the season where you wanted to let one RB walk. Who on the current team should we have let walk?
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Where did say it was so bad? They were a couple of plays away from the National championship game in 24 so they went all in on retaining the starting roster for 25. If they won the Natty last season it would've been brilliant. But they didn't, and in retaining the roster for 25 they paid guys big money not to go to the NFL or transfer while ignoring positions that were paper thin with talent like LB and WR in recruiting. So 2026 was going to be a "rebuilding year" with or without a new coach.
Where did I say the new coaches are doing things right? Half of the team are transfers that never played B1G football so I'll keep my expectations low and hope to be surprised if they are surpassed.
From the 2025 team that they retained? The guys that reportedly didn't stay in shape during the off season/guys that were cancers in the locker room would have been a good start.
There were 5 other scholarship RB behind Nick and Kaytron last season. Five. And all of them were also being paid to ride the bench.
You said TOP DOLLAR and BIG money. Pretty much every team has about 5. It is the total compensation that is an issue.
Didnt you also say they were a couple plays away from playing in a national championship and going all in would have been brilliant if it worked. Make up your mind. You are a chronic complainer. You act like a know it all after the fact.
Who should the team cut loose before next year? Dont tell us the mistakes after the season when EVERYONE already knows the obvious.
Obviously (natch) not the same scenario, but a bunch of first time B1G players did pretty well at Indiana. Campbell has been out kicking his coverage for years at Iowa State; he’s a good coach. We’ll see.
I'll let you edit this three times before I reply. You are arguing with yourself.
Ironic. You pointed out the team was a couple plays from playing for a national championship. You said it was brilliant to go all in on the players if it worked. It did not work and now you act like they should have blown it up.
Obviously. We'll see if he can stay on schedule and produce explosive plays and become Elite.
Correct. I'll be back over at the Lion's Den if you want to continue this discussion there. My mistake stopping by here. I won't make it a habit. Carry on.
If CMC loses a game, no more than 5 posts before someone blames Franklin!
I think a few of you are very likely setting yourselves up with too high of expectations. But to each your own.
I agree that we were looking at 9-3 anyway. The difference is that we were rebuilding, had some decent returning talent, had a decent 2026 class and a few top players lined up for 2027. Instead we have a bunch of Iowa State players who might be good or better than many we lost but not as many in numbers or in years of remaining eligibility.
It seems to me we wound up with 9-3 followed by an empty cupboard instead of 8-4 with top 15 cupboard.
I'm not the biggest James Franklin fan but I think he was trying to keep existing players/team happy. Players make friends and they won't be happy if you cut one of their teammates loose in exchange for a new guy they don't know. They also won't be happy if they've paid their dues and you bring in a new player by offering more money. I think that's what happened to Campbell. He expected to be the guy this fall only to learn that IA State transfers would be getting as much or more money.
It's a tough balancing act.
Transfer portal should offset that loss. We lose high school kids and replace them with proven college players. If the players are proven we should be able to get by with less players until the recruiting kicks in.
Also no point in hiding players on the depth chart and protecting redshirts. We would just be saving it for the next school. If a kid can contribute then play him.
I strongly disagree with the notion that we don't need high school recruits because we can just buy a team out of the portal. If that was the case why did USC, OSU, Oregon, etc bother to sign 25-30 4*/5* recruits in 2026?
PSU's last few classes were ranked around 4th in the BiG. That's not good enough if you want to play for a NC but it was good enough to keep us in the top 20 with an outside shot at making the playoffs. Now we have a big hole to climb out of. IMO PSU has to go at least 9-3 with one signature win. We're going to lose a lot of those IA St players and if we look like losers in 2026 it's going to take a while to bounce back.
No chit. I didnt say we dont need them. We already lost them. Do you want to shutdown the program or deal with it?
Dealing with it involves getting a few more transfers until recruiting kicks back in. Pretty much what I posted.
Campbell will never outrecruit OSU or Oregon. At best he will do is 3rd and that wont be consistent.
Ummm--the QB and RB (plus many others) know the scheme very well
I believe that if you have a good offensive line and good QB play you can win every game you play. We will have a very good offensive line in 2026 and the best college QB we have had in the last 20 years...and yes, I am saying he is better than our recent string of solid QB's. . We will beat either Michigan or USC, will beat Washington, and trip up against Wisconsin or Northwestern. We will play much more physical. 10-2.
How about Strider being injured to start the season and Lopez barely being able to hit 90mph yesterday??? 13 straight days with a game to begin the season and now this after Schwelly has surgery right before the season.
The flip side is someone stating we made the wrong decision...someone will go there.
who is "we" kemosabe?The flip side is someone stating we made the wrong decision...someone will go there.
Obviously. We'll see if he can stay on schedule and produce explosive plays and become Elite.
And WIN. THE. MIDDLE. EIGHT.
.How many of Cignetti's JMU guys ever played B1G football? They came from a league that wasn't on par with the Big XII. They stepped up big time.
I get it....It's the difference between being good and great.And WIN. THE. MIDDLE. EIGHT.
It’s tough to say how good we will be, but it’s also tough to say how good/bad the teams on our schedule will be…that’s why I don’t understand the argument that we should win X number of games based on the schedule.