[Langdude]

Connolly's preview is pretty reasonable, though I'm a bit more pessimistic than he is.  I can't shake a feeling that Costello, without his oversized receivers outmuscling DB's for contested balls, seems poised to regress this year.  And if our running game was challenged last year, it will be in worse shape this year without a proven running back and a thin offensive line.  Last year, we were a 6.1 yards per play team; with our losses, I think we lose about 0.25 - 0.5 yards per play, which would put us in a position comparable to 2016, when we had 5.77 ypp (and in the bottom half of the Pac-12).

On defense, Connolly identifies our weaknesses.  The question marks at safety and linebacker are very large.  Malik Antoine is the only player with any meaningful experience.  Head has 3 career tackles.   Robinson is highly touted, but has 36 career tackles.  Beecher is a senior with 7 lifetime tackles; and the rest redshirted last year.  We are very strong at defensive line, and in solid shape at CB (anchored by Adebo), but without linebackers and safeties, we will be very vulnerable in the middle of the field.  It's hard to see us improve on the 5.7 yards per play than we did last year, unless we get unexpected contributions at positions that right now are big question marks.

This to me smells like a 6-6 team.  Obviously, if there are answers at the questions, there is a lot of potential to outperform, and a 10-win season is not out of the question.  On the other hand, we are a couple of injuries (no worse than last year) at key positions away from a truly miserable season where 4-8 or worse are within the realm of possibility.

BC

Well, now that the season is over, we can evaluate my predictions.  I called a drop of .25 to .5 YPP on offense compared to last year’s 6.13; survey says we got 5.59 ypp, a drop of 0.54 ypp.  That’s a bit worse than I predicted, but not by much.  Defensively, we allowed 6.3 ypp, which is 0.6 ypp worse than the 5.7 YPP that I thought we would be hard pressed to improve on.  I called a 6-6 team, but the bolder statement was spot on, wasn’t it.

BC

That's a pretty impressive call, BC!

For myself, I think I was on target in my evaluation of safeties and ILB, which were not great. I think I overestimated how good CB would be; Adebo had multiple sub-par games, Eboh did not work out, and Kyu Blu was inconsistent (as might be expected from a true frosh). I predicted OLB would be fine, though not outstanding (which was true when healthy), and the same with D-line. I expected Booker would be better. Overall, the defense did maybe one standard deviation worse than I thought they would.

-m.

[Langdude]

Connolly's preview is pretty reasonable, though I'm a bit more pessimistic than he is.  I can't shake a feeling that Costello, without his oversized receivers outmuscling DB's for contested balls, seems poised to regress this year.  And if our running game was challenged last year, it will be in worse shape this year without a proven running back and a thin offensive line.  Last year, we were a 6.1 yards per play team; with our losses, I think we lose about 0.25 - 0.5 yards per play, which would put us in a position comparable to 2016, when we had 5.77 ypp (and in the bottom half of the Pac-12).

On defense, Connolly identifies our weaknesses.  The question marks at safety and linebacker are very large.  Malik Antoine is the only player with any meaningful experience.  Head has 3 career tackles.   Robinson is highly touted, but has 36 career tackles.  Beecher is a senior with 7 lifetime tackles; and the rest redshirted last year.  We are very strong at defensive line, and in solid shape at CB (anchored by Adebo), but without linebackers and safeties, we will be very vulnerable in the middle of the field.  It's hard to see us improve on the 5.7 yards per play than we did last year, unless we get unexpected contributions at positions that right now are big question marks.

This to me smells like a 6-6 team.  Obviously, if there are answers at the questions, there is a lot of potential to outperform, and a 10-win season is not out of the question.  On the other hand, we are a couple of injuries (no worse than last year) at key positions away from a truly miserable season where 4-8 or worse are within the realm of possibility.

BC

Well, now that the season is over, we can evaluate my predictions.  I called a drop of .25 to .5 YPP on offense compared to last year’s 6.13; survey says we got 5.59 ypp, a drop of 0.54 ypp.  That’s a bit worse than I predicted, but not by much.  Defensively, we allowed 6.3 ypp, which is 0.6 ypp worse than the 5.7 YPP that I thought we would be hard pressed to improve on.  I called a 6-6 team, but the bolder statement was spot on, wasn’t it.

BC

That's a pretty impressive call, BC!

For myself, I think I was on target in my evaluation of safeties and ILB, which were not great. I think I overestimated how good CB would be; Adebo had multiple sub-par games, Eboh did not work out, and Kyu Blu was inconsistent (as might be expected from a true frosh). I predicted OLB would be fine, though not outstanding (which was true when healthy), and the same with D-line. I expected Booker would be better. Overall, the defense did maybe one standard deviation worse than I thought they would.

-m.