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Late Kick Live - Josh Pate 7-17-22

Liberty City El said:
Offensively they returned most of their starters, except for their RB Hassan Haskins, but their OL remains intact so I don’t see much drop off in their offensive play, especially because they just elevated from within to replace their OC.

The big question with them is how they replenish their Defense, they lost Hutchinson, Ojabo & Dax Hill to the draft, plus had 4 players on Defense who were UDFA & also lost their DC Mike MacDonald.

They’ve recruited very well, so they’re never bereft of talent, but losing 3 1st round players at critical spots on Defense is never easy to replace. But then again, they have a system in place that’s built for plug & play with the way they interchange talent from year to year, so maybe they won’t miss those guys as much as one might think...

I personally think last season was more of a one-off for Mich, but I also see the B1G as really 2-3 team conference at the top, so gathering up 10 wins shouldn’t be too difficult for them, especially considering how weak their schedule is getting both PSU & Mich ST @ home.
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How much of a drop off do you expect with the loss of MacDonald. That's the one I barely hear mentioned, vs Gattis.
 
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Pac could be interesting. Could easily see Utah running it, but the cupboard wasn't left bare at Oregon and USC brought in a bunch of quality transfers to go along with some talent on the roster. Just gotta see if new systems in either place create a match up challenge for Utah, assuming the players pick it up well.
 
IndayArtHauz said:
How much of a drop off do you expect with the loss of MacDonald. That's the one I barely hear mentioned, vs Gattis.
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They replaced him another former Ravens coach in Jesse Minter, he’s a young guy who was at Vanderbilt last year but has some history at Georgia ST & Indiana ST.

It’s hard to say what his play call style will be, but he’s only ever been a P5 DC for 1 season, but he’s been heralded as a smart young coach, like pretty much every young coach lol.

They also elevated Clinkscale to Co-DC & Passing Game Coordinator & he’s a very good recruiter/DB’s coach, so there will be some continuity there.

I think they’ll miss MacDonald a lot more than any coach they lost because he was the catalyst that pushed them over to being a team that would always drop big games against ranked opponents to finally being able to beat Oh ST for the first time in Harbaugh’s tenure. Michigan’s Defense last year is what really turned them into a playoff team & losing a talented NFL DC is not easily replaceable.
 
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