Why should a 3-9 team be considered for the top 40? Because of elite recruits that are expected to turn things around? Because of a gamechanger type player that is returning from injury? No objective person should think that GT will be a real threat this year.
That said, I do expect that we will be a top 40 team. There was the perfect storm of things that went wrong last year, and even though individually each should not have made us fall so hard, they combined to have a pretty big effect. Also, the only game we were truly never in was on the road against arguably the best team in the country. If we win even only 3 of the 6 games that were complete tossups at the end, we finish 6-6 and play in a bowl game.
IMO if we trot out the same team as this year, plus some guys we get back from injury, we are a 7 or 8 win squad. With some good fortune, we could be a 10 win team again, but that isn't necessarily likely. I've got a feeling that CPJ is not okay with that, so I'm very curious to see if our schematic changes (pass blocking, defensive aggressiveness) are successful. I know many think that PJ is a dinosaur who is averse to change, so I think this year will be very telling.
