2016 Season Predictions

[Rabbit74]

Predictions on this year games anyone? Here are mine.

@TCU Loss
Drake Win
Cal Poly Win
Western Ill Win
@Southern Ill Win
@NDSU Win
Youngstown Win
@Ill State Loss
Mo State Win
USD Win
@UNI Loss

I am predicting this is the year we get a couple breaks and beat NDSU and finish at 8-3

[RochJack69]

Re: 2016 Season Predictions

Predictions on this year games anyone? Here are mine.

@TCU Loss
Drake Win
Cal Poly Win
Western Ill Win
@Southern Ill Win
@NDSU Win
Youngstown Win
@Ill State Loss
Mo State Win
USD Win
@UNI Loss

I am predicting this is the year we get a couple breaks and beat NDSU and finish at 8-3

I wonder if Illinois cash problems will catch up to the ISU Redbirds football program. Also, have to wonder, when SIU and YSU will again will be like their former days of glory.

[jacks1]

Re: 2016 Season Predictions

I am predicting this is the year we get a couple breaks and beat NDSU and finish at 8-3

Winning at Fargo? Love the optimism. Or, on the other hand, what are you drinking? Asking for a friend...

[CappinHard]

Re: 2016 Season Predictions

I am predicting this is the year we get a couple breaks and beat NDSU and finish at 8-3

I can see 8-3, I think it's more likely we pull of a W against Ill. St. or UNI rather than NDSU. Regardless, we need to at least go 2-1 in those games to get a top seed. With the disappointing home record in the past few years, and the easier home schedule this year, combined with the new stadium and likely large crowds, anything but perfect at home would be a disappointment.

[mnjackrbt]

Re: 2016 Season Predictions

Wins: Drake, Cal Poly, Western Illinois, Southern Illinois, Missouri State, USD. I predict we will go 5-1 against these 6 teams. Hopefully 6-0
Loss: TCU. We will go 0-1 here.
Toss-Up: NDSU, YSU, UNI, Illinois State. We will probably go 2-2 against these 4 teams, although 3-1 would be nice. 1-3 would be a little disappointing. 0-4 would mean we aren't worthy of the playoffs, even if we win our other 7 games.

Early prediction: 7-4.

[rabidrabbit]

Re: 2016 Season Predictions

@TCU Loss (Moral Victory, ie 1st NEB game)
Drake Win
Cal Poly Win
Western Ill Win
@Southern Ill Win
@NDSU Loss
Youngstown Win
@Ill State Win
Mo State Win
USD Win
@UNI Loss

Just moved to DFW area. Looking forward to catching Rabbits live in both early Sept as well as Jan!

Look forward to less "regionalization" of the play-offs. It would be super to not play seeded NDSU in the 2nd round.

[BigGoosie13]

Re: 2016 Season Predictions

Don't want to start a new thread just for this, but Blair Mulholland tweeted his bad photoshop pic in response to Coach Dickert, anyways the Runnin Rabbit logo would look great on our helmets in my opinion.

[CappinHard]

Re: 2016 Season Predictions

I agree, even better than the rabbit head. Running rabbit with SD on the other side would be amazing.

[JackJD]

Re: 2016 Season Predictions

Geez, way to try to derail the prediction thread

[CappinHard]

Re: 2016 Season Predictions

Former Jacks WR Aaron Rollins put out a new song called "Jack Attack". It features Jacks highlights, even a "Holy Nutmeg" shout out to Coach Stig. Pretty cool video and song, definitely gets a guy pumped for the season.

[thumper_76]

2016 Season Predictions

Ok here goes my predictions in three categories cause I'm pretty superstitious about making one solid prediction. So maybe that doesn't even make it a prediction post lol

Great Year (within reason)

@TCU-L
Drake-W
Cal Poly-W
WIU-W
@SIU-W
@NDSU-W
YSU-W
@ISUr-W
MSU-W
USD-W
UNI-L

9-2 Top 3 Seed

This is me at my most optimistic. I have a high hopes that Coach Eck is going to give our O line the swagger it needs for our games against UNI and NDSU. It feels like that's what has been lacking in those games, the nasty meanness necessary in those extremely physical match ups. Best case scenario we win 1/2 of those with them both being on the road. With our schedule as tough as it is (toughest in the Valley, at least conference schedule wise), only dropping one game would be an awesome year and get us a top 3 seed IMO. High hopes. But realistically......

Good Year

@TCU-L
Drake-W
Cal Poly-W
WIU-W
@SIU-W
@NDSU-L
YSU-L (Boarderline, NDSU hangover)
@ISUr-W
MSU-W
USD-W
@UNI-L

7-4 Playoffs

The YSU game really worries me, because we will be getting them before their normal end of the year crash and we play NDSU before them. Teams tend to have a let down after that game. Also I think YSU is a playoff team this year, and will be a much better team than last year. Add the distractions of Hobo Day, I don't like it. It could go either way in my book, so 8-3 is pretty reasonable as well. We really got shafted with the conference schedule this year having to play @ISUr, @NDSU, and @UNI. Ouch. Fortunately, while I think ISUr will still be a solid tough team, I think they lose enough in Coprich and Roberson we can beat them at their place. At 7-4 I see a home playoff game and going to Fargo again. Not a failure of a season by a long shot, but not great either.

Bad Year

@TCU-L
Drake-W
Cal Poly-W
WIU-L
@SIU-W
@NDSU-L
YSU-L
@ISUr-L
MSU-W
USD-W
UNI-L

5-6 No Playoffs

This should be in my mind our worst case scenario for the season. And a lot of it depends on how good teams like YSU, WIU, and ISUr are this season. If WIU doesn't have a drop with having a new coach, they could surprise us, even though I doubt it. I'm sure the team will have revenge on their minds after last years travel catastrophe. And really besides Coperich and Roberson ISUr doesn't really lose anybody on offense. They could be real good. Anything worse than 5-6 would be a total system failure where catastrophic injury happened across the board. I refuse to believe even in a bad season this year we lose to USD at home in the new stadium.

Overall
The NDSU-ISUr stretch is going to define the season IMO. If we come out of there winning 2/3, were sitting pretty. We'll be sitting at 6-2 with 2 of our last three at home and very winnable. My realistic thought is we most likely go 1/3 and are in playoff mode the rest of the season. 0/3 and were in really a desperate spot and will need to win out. I think that 7-4 or 8-3 is a fairly reasonable expectation with what we have coming back and what we have to replace.

I think we've been spoiled so much by the success the team has had. I believe we have one of if not the longest streak of being ranked in the top 25 in the country. Consecutive years in the playoffs. And now we get a shiny new stadium. What a time to be a Jackrabbit.

One other thing that would be interesting for people to predict for the season is home attendance for the inaugural season at the DJD. I think the schedule is great for us in that respect. Home opener should be huge crowd, beef bowl is always well attended, and for the late games we have Hobo Day and USD, with the only stinker looking to be the MSU game. We had a great opportunity to grow the fanbase that was missed with the let down in the Marker Game last year, but we're getting another golden opportunity to explode for attendance and popularity. All of the lesser home game opponents are early in the year with the "name" games (i.e. Beef Bowl) except one and two huge games in the cold end of the season. If we don't SMASH the season average attendance record I will be sorely disappointed. I'm thinking it should be between 16,000-17,000 if the team has a good year. Even higher if we win the Marker Game.

What an exciting year this will be!

[discoDancinJackrabbit]

Re: 2016 Season Predictions

@TCU-L
Drake-W
Cal Poly-W
WIU-W
@SIU-W
@NDSU-L
YSU-W
@ISUr-L
MSU-W
USD-W
UNI-L

Going to go with our standard 7-4(5-3), 1st round of playoffs, and then an early exit.

[CappinHard]

Re: 2016 Season Predictions

The more I look at our schedule, the more I feel like 8-3 is the mark we should hit to have a good season. Anything more would be great, anything less would be disappointing. The only losses that would be acceptable/understandable are TCU, NDSU, and UNI. Some think ISUr away will be tough, but I think they will have a down year while they reload.

[SUPERBUNNY]

Re: 2016 Season Predictions

Former Jacks WR Aaron Rollins put out a new song called "Jack Attack". It features Jacks highlights, even a "Holy Nutmeg" shout out to Coach Stig. Pretty cool video and song, definitely gets a guy pumped for the season.

Anyone know where you can get an MP3 of that song?

SUPERBUNNY

[RabbitObsessed]

Re: 2016 Season Predictions

@TCU-L
Drake-W
Cal Poly-W
WIU-W
@SIU-W
@NDSU-L
YSU-W
@ISUr-L
MSU-W
USD-W
UNI-L

Going to go with our standard 7-4(5-3), 1st round of playoffs, and then an early exit.

Agreed with 7-4 and the playoffs. Only thing I might switch would be UNI as a W (seems like we just find a way to beat them every year) and add some loss in there that absolutely shouldn't happen. Maybe Youngstown or Southern Illinois.