Invoice Connelly’s mega offseason previews: Convention USA East
Our 2021 school soccer preview collection begins in Convention USA. The East division struggled in 2020, fielding loads of respectable items however, other than early-season Marshall, probably not that includes any groups that had their acts collectively on either side of the ball.
With the Thundering Herd altering head coaches, and with most groups returning massive parts of final yr’s depth charts, it is doable that what the division lacks in upside it makes up for in expertise and competitiveness. SP+ tasks all seven groups to win between three and 5 convention video games on common, although final yr’s champion begins out atop the pack.
Each week via the summer time, Invoice Connelly will preview one other division from the Group of 5 and Energy 5 solely for ESPN+, in the end together with all 130 FBS groups. They’ll embody 2020 breakdowns, 2021 previews and a short historical past of every workforce in a single useful chart.
Soar to a workforce: Previous Dominion | Charlotte | Center Tennessee | FIU | Western Kentucky | Florida Atlantic | Marshall
Ricky Rahne’s first season lastly will get underway after the Monarchs grew to become one in every of three faculties to cancel their 2020 fall slate due to COVID-19 issues.
2021 projections
Projected SP+ rank: 120
Projected report: 5-7 (3-5)
Seemingly wins* (1): Hampton (SP+ win likelihood: 95%)
Relative toss-ups (7): UTEP (64%), Louisiana Tech (55%), Charlotte (54%), at FIU (40%), at MTSU (40%), WKU (38%), FAU (38%)
Seemingly losses (4): Buffalo (25%), at Marshall (19%), at Wake Forest (11%), at Liberty (6%)
* Seemingly wins are video games through which SP+ tasks the scoring margin to be larger than seven factors, or above about 65% win likelihood. Seemingly losses are the alternative, and relative toss-ups are all of the video games in between.
