Excellent season, far exceeded my expectations and as mentioned firmly ends the "why were they added" talk about our program to the conference. Expect an uptick in publicity, recruiting, and fan support with these wins this year, plus the IPF coming next year. Above all else, I hope we build on this and get more fans in the stadium. I've never heard a place get so loud for an FCS game yesterday and that wasn't even a capacity crowd. We need that at Lavalle and we can get it if the university can create a game day experience that gets the students to come out and put out a product on the field worth watching.
For 2018, we do lose a lot no doubt and the schedule gets much harder. I NEVER expect us to revert back to being a five win team despite these losses. I'm going to assume Carbone returns for his final season, so having your QB return allowing some stability will always be a benefit all things being equal. If these recruits come in and light the place on fire in camp, by all means play them over Joe, but otherwise we're probably best sticking with him. I'm hoping for yet another off-season of improvement by Joe.
I'm setting my initial expectations at six wins next year. We lose a lot and the schedule gets tougher, but this is still a talented team. If we're going to make the deep playoff run, we've got to beat the elite teams at some point. Six isn't unreasonable at all. Reverting back to five wins yet again will probably get me calling for certain people's heads again, but we'll see.