Next Year's Schedule

[Coach34]

Towles was told to leave. His back-up was damn near a 5-star QB coming out of HS

Kentucky can't improve with a lot of starters returning but State can???

[ShotgunDawg]

I'm shocked Conner is coming back..

I remember them announcing it last week. Ole Miss will have a coverage problem though. Losing Hilton & Elston is a big blow for them, along with Tee Shepard not panning out. They basically only have Tony Bridges returning in their coverage unit. FWIW, their secondary already sucked this year until they moved Hilton from S to CB.

[Really Clark?]

I'm shocked Conner is coming back..

Two surgeries this fall hurting his stock

[ShotgunDawg]

Towles was told to leave. His back-up was damn near a 5-star QB coming out of HS

Kentucky can't improve with a lot of starters returning but State can???

I didn't say we would be improved, but we have a major head start on Kentucky & don't think we'll regress enough & they'll improve enough to beat us. IMO, there's a nice size gap

[Really Clark?]

Towles was told to leave. His back-up was damn near a 5-star QB coming out of HS

Kentucky can't improve with a lot of starters returning but State can???

That 5 star has a chance but it better click for him next year much better than his play this year. Horrible game against Louisville. And they will breaking in another OC. Just fired his second or third OC in as many years. As Boom Williams goes so goes that offense next year I expect. Actually think Stoops is on the edge of next year being his last.

[Coach34]

We shall see. I expect them to be an improved football team. And the game is at their place. Toss up game

[RougeDawg]

Didn't even list them. Their offensive line next year will be Little, Patterson, Taylor, ?, ?

That's a very young & questionable offensive line. There is talent, but it's young & inexperienced. Kelly could be running for his life.

If next year's line hides their holding on every play like this year's, Kelly will have all the time in the world to throw. They were riding Brown and Jones down, calf roping style, from behind the entire egg bowl and never got called. What evidence do we have that these will be called next year in Oxford when we couldn't get the calls at home?

[Really Clark?]

He's not rated the #1 Juco for no reason

He couldn't win the job out right or out play the other QB during the season. He has some ability but that ranking is skewed.

[ShotgunDawg]

We shall see. I expect them to be an improved football team. And the game is at their place. Toss up game

We have a ton of "toss up" games next year. Could be an emotionally draining season. Lots of close games.

To me, it all comes down to our offensive line. If they significantly improve this off season, our young RBs can figure things out, & we are able to re-establish our running game, we've got a chance to be interesting.

However, if our offensive line makes little progress between now & then, it's going to be a tough year.

[ShotgunDawg]

If next year's line hides their holding on every play like this year's, Kelly will have all the time in the world to throw. They were riding Brown and Jones down, calf roping style, from behind the entire egg bowl and never got called. What evidence do we have that these will be called next year in Oxford when we couldn't get the calls at home?

Low hanging fruit. I prefer intelligent conversations.

[Really Clark?]

We shall see. I expect them to be an improved football team. And the game is at their place. Toss up game

They had better be improved, their schedule starts harder next year. If they have 3-4 losses by the time we play them, which is possible, then they could fold again just like nearly every year under Stoops.

[mic]

We have a ton of "toss up" games next year. Could be an emotionally draining season. Lots of close games.

To me, it all comes down to our offensive line. If they significantly improve this off season, our young RBs can figure things out, & we are able to re-establish our running game, we've got a chance to be interesting.

However, if our offensive line makes little progress between now & then, it's going to be a tough year.

Exactly.. thin line between 5 wins and 9 wins..

[msstate7]

Om starts with Georgia, fsu, and bama in September. 1-3 is a very real possibility. If that happens, I'll bet their fans are screaming for Patterson

[Bothrops]

I don't see any way we will be improved at TE- we lost 2 good guys there and return almost no experience.

We won't be as good at QB, CB, and on the DL- and those 3 positions are huge

QB is critical. There may be a higher risk, higher reward style of play. I see interceptions likely increasing, but deep receptions for touchdowns also going up. Fitz has a cannon and seems to be very accurate.

I am starting to concede that our DL will never be anything special under Mullen.

Our secondary got torched all season because of our cushiony maxi-pad defense. How much worse could that be.

[confucius say]

Towles was told to leave. His back-up was damn near a 5-star QB coming out of HS

Kentucky can't improve with a lot of starters returning but State can???

To be fair, our returning starters are much better, so while both teams starters can improve, ours will still be markedly better. We'll see how good they are at qb and that will determine a lot

[Johnson85]

We shall see. I expect them to be an improved football team. And the game is at their place. Toss up game

I agree. If we had them at home, it might be different. At the same time, I expected them to be improved this year. they could end up being a team that just never gets over the hump. Same with Arkansas. If they just start next season like they finished this one, they'll have a pretty good jump. But I'm not sure it's realistic to expect them to do it while breaking in a new QB.

On the other hand, I'm not sure either of them will have to make a jump to beat us. We are not far off from being a pretty good team next year. But we weren't far off after last year either. We just needed a few people to step up, and basically nobody did. We needed Coman's play to match his athleticism (or at least what shwos up on the big dawg board or whatever they call it), we needed one of Brandon Bryant, Peters, or McLaurin to step up early, we needed all of our returning linemen to make marginal improvements and for Jenkins or Warren to be serviceable at LT, and we needed shump or one of our RS Freshmen RBs to step up and be a solid every down back. We pretty much went ofer on every one. Coman was not better, Certainly not displeased with Brant, Peters or McLaurin, but we didn't get what we needed out of them to be good this year at S. Most players on our OLine stayed the same or actually regressed somehow. Shump was terrible and Aeris and DLee somehow couldn't even get on the field. Stuggling at safety and LT was not unexpected, but it's pretty disturbing that it was worst case scenario across the board. If we have the same batting average on improvement from this yaer to next, we have a chance to be really bad.

We still need everyone of our returning Olinemen to improve, but need even more improvement. We still need somebody to step up at RB. We still need Safeties to step up and be good. But in addition to that, we need some DL to emerge and basically two CB's to emerge, and most importantly, need a RS Sophomore QB to avoid much dropoff from probably the best QB in MSU's history. Thinking about it more, maybe I was too optimistic thinking 5 wins is our floor.

[ShotgunDawg]

QB is critical. There may be a higher risk, higher reward style of play. I see interceptions likely increasing, but deep receptions for touchdowns also going up. Fitz has a cannon and seems to be very accurate.

I am starting to concede that our DL will never be anything special under Mullen.

Our secondary got torched all season because of our cushiony maxi-pad defense. How much worse could that be.

QB is critical, but I'm optimistic that our running game has a chance to be very improved, which should give Fitz more easy throws down the field, where he throws a better deep ball than Dak. Ints will go up, but, if more explosive plays come from that, I'm OK with it.

It's all about the OL & RBs. If those two position step up, it will take a ton of pressure off Fitz

[Maroonthirteen]

Well, I agree it is to soon to know for sure. However, Fitz is a better athletes than Dak. He will be more elusive in the pocket. But he will probably have more than 3 picks next year.

While I think the OL will get better because of some personnel moves and young guys getting experience, I don't expect it to be greatly improved.

I expect the RB position to be much better with Williams and Lee....and maybe Deer returning.

[Maroonthirteen]

Double post

[defiantdog]

Unless we find and offensive line and someone to run the ball consistently, we won't have a chance at hitting 9 wins. Also, the coaches are talking about revamping the defense this Spring. There is talk of Durr, Morgan-Walker, Smitherman and Knot being in the hunt for the top 2 DB positions. Yes, for once, our coaches are telling Knot he will play next year and have a chance at starting if he chooses to go to State.