Differences in expectations. Let's talk about that. And get to a realistic answer based on home/away SEC games and OOC games.
Alabama under Saban expects to compete for the national championship every year and it is a realistic expectation. This means they expect to win all games, both home and away.
Honestly, do you expect to win road games at LSU and Bama every year? We expect to win OOC games no matter where they are home or away. To be blunt, that is how Bama is about us and the rest of the SEC. Would I love to have upset them? Hell yes. Funny note about that -- look back to the 2014 post game with us at Tuscaloosa and Saban has this smirk on his face. It's because he knows he just beat a better team because he had his team motivated and ready and we couldn't handle the pressure. Pressure that he lives with every day and every weekend.
We expect to win all OOC games. We expect to win all home games except Bama. We HOPE we beat Bama. We HOPE we beat LSU in Baton Rouge. So for 2016 being realistic, count those 2 as losses unless we play above our game. Next is OM at Oxford and we probably lose that one too. BYU away worries me but we should win that one too. So that means 2016 realistically is 9-3 or if we really play well, 10-2.
Mullen has raised the expectations to win all of our OOC games and every SEC game except for Bama, LSU.