is that USF is BETTER this year than they were last.
Yeah, one of those other teams that beat us on the road last year.
Do you really think SMC would/coulda kept it close if we'd played Gideon in the first half?
So why would you guess that Pope's making things unnecessarily difficult for us this year?
And you point about LMU — despite their struggles, they've for several years now have fielded one of the most athletic rotations in the league. And SMC (even last season) struggles against high-level athleticism. Unfortunately we didn't have much to throw at them last season. If we'd had Gideon on last season's roster, things probably would gone much differently against them.