In Reply to: There was another poster posted by TJJ on October 10, 2026 at 17:17:38
'Twas I.
And I stand by it.
The question that was on the table at the time was "What is a REASONABLE expectation for the Chesney's Year I win-loss record?" Not "What would you bet on"; not "What is the ceiling"? It was what is reasonable to expect from a good coach taking over a dumpster fire.
So what was I seeing at the time? A coach that had never coached in a Power 5 conference. Coaching assistants that had never coached in a Power 5 conference. A coach that was moving players in and out of the roster without dramatically improving the average star rating. A coach that was dramatically improving our recruiting effort, beginning with the CLASS OF 2027. The recruits everyone is getting excited about weren't going to arrive until Spring 2007 at the earliest. And then all the NIL instability and how much new money could be found in the pockets of donors. In short, there were too many variables in play to assume EVERYTHING would work out.
Now, I want to be clear. I always thought Chesney was a good coach. I always thought he would get us where we want to go. I just didn't think it was a REASONABLE EXPECTATION that he could correct everything about the dumpster fire by Labor Day 2026.
I thought it was a reasonable expectation that he would get us to 5-7 this year, 7-5 next year, and 9-3 in Year III. And I believe I said so here, explicitly. And who would complain about that? How would that be failure?
Let's say that the unimaginable happens and the wheels come off right now. We hit a string of almost supernatural bad luck and don't win another game. Would you fire Chesney? I doubt there's a single person here that would want to fire Chesney right now, no matter how poorly he does the rest of the season. Because we know too much now. We can see the future.
So, if you wouldn't fire Chesney in my hypothetical scenario, on some level you'd be accepting 5-7 as a reasonable improvement over the dumpster fire.
To me, the question "What's a reasonable expectation?" is not about what we hoped to see, but about what would be the minimal level of success for us to continue with the Bob Chesney experiment? My analysis was 4-8 nope; 5-7 yup. 4-8 would not show that Chesney would make a difference; 5-7 would demonstrate that he would.
Believe me, I'm delighted that appears to be on track to exceed the expectations of ALL of us. But I still stand by 5-7 as REASONABLE.