Below is my schedule analysis, built not in order of appearance but rather by difficulty, along with commentary. Let me know what you think!
Getting to 2 wins --- Jacksonville State and UMass. These are near-guarantees and don't need to spend any real time discussing. I think 2-12 is the absolute floor for this team.
Getting to 3 wins --- Add Syracuse. This team is widely predicted to be dead last in the ACC, so this should be a win.
Getting to 4 wins --- Add Wake Forest or Louisville. I think we're approaching the high water mark of how last year's team would fare if they played our upcoming schedule. They likely split these games, maybe win both to get to 5 wins, but that's near the limit of where last year's team would have ended up.
Getting to 5 wins --- Add Wake Forest AND Louisville. This is the ceiling for last year's team, in my opinion. If we get this far but no farther, then I think it's reasonable to have doubts as to the improvement of this team, year over year. Note, these are good teams, and getting to 5 wins is an accomplishment, but not "better".
Getting to 6 Wins --- Add Boston College. This is where the divide is on "improvement". If we get to 6-6 in any pathway (the one I'm providing being the easiest), I think it is safe to say we're a better team. At this point, the wins are meaningful, as BC is likely a very good team this year.
Getting to 7 Wins --- Add NC State. At this point, we're in a "much improved" category, as sweeping the schedule I've just mentioned would be a real accomplishment. Getting to 7-5 by any means with this schedule is my personal *realistic* hope for this year. We go 7-5, and I'm a happy man.
At this point, we cross into a new tier of teams... the gap between 7-5 and 8-4 is large. Very large.
Getting to 8 Wins --- Add North Carolina. If we go 8-4 this year, Norvell is the real deal all day. This is a fantastic team and we should be stoked out of our minds for 2022. Realistically, this is probably the highest I'm willing to allow myself to imagine our record.
Getting to 9 Wins --- Add either Notre Dame or Florida or Miami --- it's hard to separate these teams into a clear "next one up". In my mind, to get to 9 wins, you need to win 1 of these games, with *maybe* ND being the easiest of the three, given the timing of playing them. While I don't like to place a ceiling on the team, as I think 12-0 is more likely than 0-12, this is probably the realistic ceiling. Getting to this point would require a fundamentally different team than we've seen, really since 2014. I don't know if the 2015 or 2016 teams go 9-3 this year. In fact, I think the 2012-2014 teams are the only ones that could do it in recent history (going back to 2005).
Getting to 10 Wins --- Win 2 of 3 of ND, UF, UM.
Getting to 11 Wins --- Sweep ND, UF, and UM. This is now a miraculous season.
Getting to 12 Wins --- Add Clemson, and then wake up from your dream. 12-0 ain't happenin.
I think this makes for a tough situation for Coach Norvell, unfortunately. Each incremental win, starting at 3 wins, gets exponentially tougher to imagine. Putting together 5 wins will not be easy this year, but to escape criticism, he'll need to pull out 6 wins. If he can manage 7, then he's in a good spot. But that's a pretty narrow window... win 5 and people have doubts, win 6 and they don't have doubts, win 7 and they love you. Tough job!
