My goodness does that overall line look better if you reverse Kennesaw State and Princeton L's to W's. Obviously can't go back in time, but I'd argue they'd be at worst on the bubble if those L's are swapped and at best already in with 8 games to go. I know tons of teams could do similar things with a "but if we only won that game," but man, entire season would feel wildly different if we just took care of it against those mediocre teams. Not to mention, a few games we could have potentially had a shot to pick off if Dylan was healthy (e.g. Penn State on the road, MSU at MSG, Michigan at home).
I just want one run to be able to say there's a sniff at this thing. Maryland is absolutely MASSIVE. You win that, and there's a world in which this thing gets interesting with a slate of 4x mediocre teams following it (Iowa, Oregon, Washington, and USC). The Maryland game is an all the marbles type game to keep a dream alive. The Illinois win let's us dream, the Maryland game tells us whether to wake up or not.
I just want one run to be able to say there's a sniff at this thing. Maryland is absolutely MASSIVE. You win that, and there's a world in which this thing gets interesting with a slate of 4x mediocre teams following it (Iowa, Oregon, Washington, and USC). The Maryland game is an all the marbles type game to keep a dream alive. The Illinois win let's us dream, the Maryland game tells us whether to wake up or not.
