1) We didn't overachieve, we were far from overachieving. We lost a completely winnable game to Cincy, we blew a lead to FSU, and then lost another completely winnable game to WSU.
See. This is what fanboys do. Count all the games we could've won and forget to mention all the games we could've lost.
We almost blew the Nebraska game. We could've easily lost to Duke. And Virginia. And Pittsburgh.
As I said before these things tend to even out.
Let me Ether this real quick.
1) As a Bears fan, I take great offense to you calling yourself Brian Piccolo, and I could care less if you are a fan of his or even an offspring; the illogical approach you take in your posts, I'm sure, is making him turn over in his grave.
2) You mentioned the difference between Vegas and fan boys; that Vegas goes by hard facts, while fanboys go by emotions.
Here are a few examples of the fallacy of that statement:
Hard Facts: Winner of Super Bowl L was the Denver Broncos.
Vegas: The preseason favorites to win the SB were New England, Seattle, and Pittsburgh
Vegas: Playoff Favorite: Carolina Panthers.
Hard Facts: Cleveland Cavaliers won the 2016 NBA Championship
Vegas: Preseason Favorites: GSW
Vegas: Playoff Favorites: overwhelmingly GSW
Hard Facts: Villanova won the 2016 NCAA Tournament
Vegas: Preseason Favorite: Kansas Jayhawks
Vegas: Tournament Favorite: Kansas Jayhawks
What's the point? Vegas is a business. They thrive off people losing money; they do not thrive off people winning. Vegas often times skew the bottom line just to entice people to take it, and in the end, they become very profitable from it.
Vegas is full of guys who go by statistics that have been generated from the last several years, and in turn, make their prognostication based upon that data. In sports, pieces move, so Vegas' "hard numbers" are nothing more than estimated numbers.
Vegas also put their chips on the teams who are the constants; they pay attention to the Bama's, the FSU's, the OSU's, the GSW's, the Yankees, the Red Sox of the world; yet, they often fail to predict, adequately, teams that are under the radar. With that being said, I would take their prediction of 6.5 wins w/ a grain of salt since they are going by what Miami has done under the Golden regime over the last several years.
3) Golden was by far thee worst coach this program has ever had, maybe in the history of NCAAF; I'm not just saying that, the numbers back it up. Miami has out recruited EVERY single team in the ACC Coastal. They have also out recruited the likes of TCU, Baylor, KSU, Iowa, Michigan State, Boise State, and Stanford; yet, all of the aforementioned teams I listed have played in their respective conference championship games or have won their conference outright (referring to the BIG 12). With that being said, it's safe to say that Golden did less with more.
It's been well documented by many NFL scouts that Miami players received, and I quote, "poor coaching" while being here.
Golden cost players millions of dollars, dollars they will never get back. So if Golden could pump out 9 wins from a 2013 squad, and the combo of Golden and Scott pumped out 8 wins from the 2015 squad, I think it's logical to think that the guy who holds a 74% winning pct in the SEC taking over a program who returns 96% of the same team that went 8-5 last year will win more than 8 games against a softer schedule he's accustomed to, don't you think?
4) If you don't think this team underachieved year in and year out, then either a) you're a flat out troll b) you are blind c) you are Golden or one of his family members or d) you are completely schizophrenic...if b or d are applicable to you, then I sincerely apologize....but my money, based upon "hard facts" would lean towards option a.
Again, since you want to base things upon numbers, based upon the number of blue chips that Golden recruited at Miami vs. the competition we played against, we were a better team on paper, against 75% of the opponents we faced over the last 5 years. That's called underachieving. Whenever you are favorite to win, based upon talent level, and you do not achieve or live up to that expectation, then that's called underachieving.
If you are trying to make the argument that based upon the score board, we overachieved that makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE. A W is a W and a L is a L; we leave "moral victories" to the Texas St, Bethune Cookman, Appalachian St, and the West Texas' of the world. This team lost games to teams that we were clearly better than, that's underachieving. We struggled against teams that we were better than...that's underachieving. I don't know why that's so hard for you to understand.