2020 and 2021 may be rough

[dawgday166]

Not sure there is any difference at QB than what we have now. We're actually better throwing now.

Kylin started in 2018, so you can't say that is different & he's better now than he was then

Osiris was the best WR in 2018 & he's back & older

I'll give you the OL, but Leach isn't going to be asking them to impose their will

I don't honestly see any meaningful difference in the offensive personnel although I'm sure you can throw out a bunch of stats as to how I'm wrong.

Fitz is as good as anyone we got right at this moment to me until proven otherwise.

I was talking about Aeris as 1100 back that would block ... which affected Fitz significantly BTW that he didn't start.

Also ... 2017 team had smoked LSU & went to mat with Bama. That was a confident team coming back. This team ain't that way. Just the most minor adversity and they fold like an accordion. It's night/day between those 2 sets of offenses.

[the_real_MSU_is_us]

Fitz is as good as anyone we got right at this moment to me until proven otherwise.

I was talking about Aeris as 1100 back that would block ... which affected Fitz significantly BTW that he didn't start.

Also ... 2017 team had smoked LSU & went to mat with Bama. That was a confident team coming back. This team ain't that way. Just the most minor adversity and they fold like an accordion. It's night/day between those 2 sets of offenses.

I actually think the "confidence" is a negative, not a positive. I think it made us not work as hard and not be mentally prepared for failure.

Maybe now the players will be humble enough to listen to coaching

[sandwolf]

NC State will probabaly be pretty good. They were supposed to be good, were in nearly every game, and have almost everybody back.

What do you mean they were in nearly every game? They lost by 17, 18, 21, 34, 45, 14, 2, and 31. They were absolutely awful.

[dawgday166]

I actually think the "confidence" is a negative, not a positive. I think it made us not work as hard and not be mentally prepared for failure.

Maybe now the players will be humble enough to listen to coaching

Could be ... not sure tho. I don't believe Leach would've allowed that to happen. What I mean by confidence tho is they had been thru some fires in 2017 and 2016 also. This team coming back this year with all the new starters and young QB ... haven't really been thru those fires yet to the same extent.

[dantheman4248]

You still predicting 11-1 for last year? Tommy still better than Dak? Just giving you a hard time LOL.

You performed a P&S analysis on next season yet? If so, what are your ground rules and assumptions for that analysis going into next year?

I have a 93% chance we end between 5-9 wins next year. I'll know more once rosters and position battles shake out but the SEC is once again weak.

I'll probably predict 10 wins with losses to A&M and LSU because that's once again a better value than the 8-4 that I see us having. (I had us at favored in 8 last year shoutout Tennessee and Kansas State, but again took 11 because it was different enough to be unique and a lot more fun and hopeful than being the person who predicted 6-6 right. Even though they were about the same value.)

[Lord McBuckethead]

Rough means this:

We will be rebuilding our D in 2020 after losing alot of good players for the 2nd season in a row. We lose our best pass-rusher and 3/4 of our 2-deep at LB. We lose our entire starting Secondary from Game 1 last season. The Secondary got a little experience in 2019- but by and large is still green. We are depending on jucos for a pass rush because we lost our best DE and our other starting DE had 2 sacks in 2019. To say our D may struggle next year on D is putting it mildly.

Offensively we are about to do a 180 in scheme. We ran the ball 60% of the time in 2019. Those days are gone. That kind of change takes time to adjust to. Plus- we are not even sure who the QB will be and other things that factor in.

Until we see how things shake out- we just dont know. Shrader could get run off in April or suspended, we could have drug tests hamper participation, lots of things yet to be decided. 6 wins for us in 2020 would be a huge win. Less than 6 is 50/50 and could easily happen

Our defense could be terrible next year. Hell, we were terrible this year and we lose a ton yet again. We are in a full rebuild. I agree, I am hoping for 6 wins with being competitive in the other games. This first year is going to be rough because we just do not have all the horses we need on defense and we could be missing a few on the offensive side of the ball depending on Hill and our WRs emerging.

QB - We have talent here. Who's to know if we can take a large enough step forward. Moving from Moorhead's PHD level system that required 3-4 reads pre snap, checks, and additional reads by WRs and the Qb during the play. I do subscribe to the practice a small group of plays 1000 times mentality versus the 50 plays 20 times. If we simplify our schemes and get some players to stop thinking and just playing, we will see improvement.

[BB30]

Shotgun's melt is going to be epic if we lose to NC State.

Shotgun, I love your passion and positive outlook right now. But 5-6 wins will be a success this year even with the schedule. You can't change a culture in one off season. We still have a bunch of soft guys on that roster.

I do agree with the sentiment that we will see improvement throughout the season and this years 5-7 or 6-6 will be much better than this past years.

If all he fixes is the boneheaded pre-snap penalties this year it will be a more enjoyable team to watch. I still don't understand how you manage to start not one but several games with a pre snap delay of game in the first series of plays.

[ShotgunDawg]

Shotgun's melt is going to be epic if we lose to NC State.

Shotgun, I love your passion and positive outlook right now. But 5-6 wins will be a success this year even with the schedule. You can't change a culture in one off season. We still have a bunch of soft guys on that roster.

I do agree with the sentiment that we will see improvement throughout the season and this years 5-7 or 6-6 will be much better than this past years.

If all he fixes is the boneheaded pre-snap penalties this year it will be a more enjoyable team to watch. I still don't understand how you manage to start not one but several games with a pre snap delay of game in the first series of plays.

- yes I will melt if we lose NC State

- many on here disagree with you on whether the culture can be changed in an off season. Culture was the best part of this program 2 years ago. It isn’t that far gone.

[HancockCountyDog]

Culture was the best part of this program 2 years ago. It isn’t that far gone.

The best part of the program two years ago was a seasoned OL, a QB built for a run first offense, two high end college RB's, and a defense that had roughly 8 NFL players on it.

You can have the culture - i'll take the talent.

[Scared_Hitless]

Best case this season to me is 8-4 where we improve dramatically I think 6 or 7 is a reasonable goal. If we play with toughness and grit most of the fanbase will be onboard. Leach is walking into a much better situation than Joe did. Joe was destined to fail after he got off the plane talking about ring sizes. I think people are going to be shocked at our toughness and effort. I watched a good bit of Leach film and he fields some gritty teams, effort will be mandatory.

[Johnson85]

- yes I will melt if we lose NC State

- many on here disagree with you on whether the culture can be changed in an off season. Culture was the best part of this program 2 years ago. It isn’t that far gone.

We have 4 "must-win" games to start the season. And the follow that up with 4 almost sure losses. NExt season could get off the rails quickly.

I think we get to 6 because I don't think we would have to be a particularly good team to win 8 depending on how good UK and Mizzou turn out to be. But I think there's a pretty decent chance we are a bad football team to start the season. Just a lot of stuff going on between new offense, still weak receiving corp, replacing defensive players, etc.

But it's really hard to make any predictions with confidence. If none of our qbs pick up the offense, there are probably 6 games we will lose and another two that are losable. If our past recruiting rankings were accurat'ish (I'm thinking we're going to surprise to the downside), we can probably win 8 even without the offense fully clicking. If we have a qb pick it up and our receivers respond to coaching, we might win 8 even with our recruiting rankings overestimating our talent.

[Johnson85]

And here we go again. I was the jackass because I kept saying our coach was JoVester in 2019. Boys- you bout to be disappointed in 2020. We are going to work hard for 6 wins. Will be happy if we get it.

But not as happy as you'll be if you get to come on here and crow I told you so.