Football
After a 5-7 record in their inaugural season in the Big Ten Conference, many are expecting UCLA football to once again hover around five wins.
In coach DeShaun Foster’s second season with the program, ESPN College Football analyst and host of the Always College Football Show, Greg McElroy breaks down why that win total may be right; and just how the Bruins can hit the over.
“The win total is 5.5, they had five wins in DeShaun Foster’s first season,” McElroy said. “(They) pulled off a couple pretty big upsets last year too. So, it wouldn’t surprise me if this team is more competitive than they were just a year ago. I think the schedule might be more difficult, though, going into this season.”
An offseason of improvement highlighted by the acquisition of former Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava gives Bruins fans promise that this season’s team will certainly be better than the last.
But as McElroy noted, this season’s schedule is much more difficult than the last. The analyst gave his thoughts on which games should be wins for UCLA and which ones he doesn’t see the Bruins coming out on top of.
“They’ll have New Mexico and Northwestern. Those should be wins for UCLA this year,” McElroy noted. “Then you have a handful of losses. Penn State, at Indiana, at Ohio State, and at USC.
“You’re going to sit there (and say), ‘Well, they can beat USC.’ Sure they could, but right now, here in the preseason, I would lean heavily towards the Trojans in that matchup. So, we’ll put that in the L category for now. Which means they have to win four of these toss-up games.”
McElroy’s initial predictions has UCLA at two surefire wins and four sure fire losses, leaving them having to win four of the remaining six games on the schedule to not only reach that over, but have a chance at the postseason.
“Utah at home,” McElroy continued, “at UNLV, they should be able to get UNLV, but Dan Mullen and company (are) going to be a very different outfit than they were just a year ago… They have to go at Michigan State on October 11th. They have Maryland at home, they have Nebraska at home and they have Washington at home.
“Can they win four of those toss-up games? Because if they can, they’ll get back to the postseason and they will cash in that over ticket on the win total.”
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