These idiots don't know anything. He didn't have UCF in his pre-season top 30 last year. Apparently, he can be wrong.
In every single sport we see the same thing, all question marks are resolved in the negative. Don't know who will emerge as QB? Assume nobody will and QB play will stink. Only 2 returning players from a bad Defense? Assume the replacements will be even worse. We see it now with the hoops team. The expected contribution from Gilbert among prognosticators is close to zero. Yet he could be freaking fantastic. The unknown is the unknown. It can be good or bad, or just so-so.
The problem is that it never works that way. There are many, many upside surprises every year in every sport. Players develop and improve, new guys come in and are better than expected. That is not to suggest that this UConn team will win the division, that would require too many upside surprises. But it is not unreasonable to expect that we will get solid play from some unexpected places next year. Replacing all the players on a bad defense might be a positive thing. A second year in the system almost certainly will be. And I'm not worried about QB play at all. We have 3 guys who are talented players, 4 if you count true freshmen.