- Is this team better now than it was 1 year ago?
- Do you see improvement ?
BL- I feel much better about this team now then I did at the close of last year. We started Youth all over the field minus the LBs and now in week 10, those players are starting to look like the team we expected at the beginning of the year..
Yes, the year got derailed with the early loses, but who expected Bubba Baxa to implode, plus honestly this team lacked a few "Refuse to Lose" leaders. I think the staff took a while to adjust to the personel, but they have and this team just had to learn to win.
Looking ahead
You now have 10 of 11 starters (maybe 9 if DJ leaves) coming back on Offense with a QB ranked in the top 10 of CFB in a lot of categories.
you have a young OL that is returning the entire 2-deep and has shown much improvement over the beginning of the year.
On defense you are replacing 3 and 1/2 starters (bethel, Hill and whole DL rotates a lot)
Yes the LBs + Striker are graduating, but bringing back a 5th year McCLoud stabilizes the position some and frierson has played at the striker which really means that out of 11 on defense only 1 LB will be inexperienced.
There were and still may be some growing pains with Manny as HC, but if they finish strong as expected next year looks like a year of real growth.