I hope the players and coaches take the next 2 opponents seriously but I don't have to: I'm very confident we roll into San Diego at 7-4, even if we play poorly in our next 2 games.

So, finishing better than last year being my main hope, doing so means winning either at San Diego State or in a bowl game or both. Not sure how I feel about our odds of doing either. SDSU is atop their MWC West division, but would be tied for 4th in the Mountain division, behind Boise and USU. We'll know more tonight after the Aztecs play Fresno St. at 9:30 EST on ESPN2. Here's SDSU's record. Note both losses were at home:

W vs Weber State 6-0 (the score, not either team's record)
W vs a then hapless UCLA team 23-14. Comparable to our win vs. USC?
W vs NMSU 31-10. Not a great opponent but the Aztecs took care of business better than we have
L vs USU 23-17. All else equal, this is a good sign, but ignores matchups.
W vs. Colorado St. 24-10. The Rams are 4-5 this year, and I'm not sure what that means really since I don't watch the MWC (yay!)
W vs Wyoming 26-22. Hard to pick who'd I'd rather have lose between these two squads, but the Cowboys are 6-3 overall.
W vs SJSU 27-17. All self-respecting teams should expect to beat San Jose St., who are 1-5 in conference.
W vs UNLV 20-17. Barely beat a 2-7 Rebels team.
L to Nevada. A bit of a head scratcher.

They also play at Hawaii the week before our game. Hawaii, with a win, may be motivated to grab 1st place in the division in that game, though likely not if they lose at UNLV tomorrow.

Signs point to this game being winnable for the Cougars, especially with the Aztecs' loss to USU and my unscientific observation SDSU appears to be playing worse as time goes on. But we didn't always show up as well vs. lesser teams as they have. I don't think we win if we play at the same level of effort, execution and creativity we showed *at home* vs. Liberty. SDSU also focuses on the run: stopping it and running it themselves. The same lanes that we opened vs. USU got closed down by Liberty: we'll need more creativity or just plain old good blocking to run on the Aztecs, and our D line will have to solidify against the run again, something that they didn't do in our 2 otherwise inexplicable losses.

My blue goggles tell me we win, but if I take them off (like we have to when watching games) and I think our boys better show up.