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This is sneaky great Transfer Portal Class

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407cane said:
this is hilariously short sided and not accurate in the slightest. at least pre-cursor it with a "in my opinion"
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I’m still trying to figure out how this is hilariously short sided when it’s entirely factual.

We did fantastic work on paper to flip the secondary, and a ton of positions on this team have talent, but are unproven. What’s incorrect about that?

Do we not have question marks at WR, LB and DT?
 
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Does this roster make us better than Clemson? Because that’s who we have to go through to get into the playoffs
 
TriStarCane said:
Does this roster make us better than Clemson? Because that’s who we have to go through to get into the playoffs
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Couldn’t have taken every player in the portal in the spring and ended up better than Clemson. They have 5-6 1st rounders coming in the 2026 draft.

Maybe we have more depth but they have as much or more top of the line old/experienced talent than anyone in the country.
 
JayCane20 said:
Couldn’t have taken every player in the portal in the spring and ended up better than Clemson. They have 5-6 1st rounders coming in the 2026 draft.

Maybe we have more depth but they have as much or more top of the line old/experienced talent than anyone in the country.
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How did they do that when they don’t use the portal?
 
JayCane20 said:
Couldn’t have taken every player in the portal in the spring and ended up better than Clemson. They have 5-6 1st rounders coming in the 2026 draft.

Maybe we have more depth but they have as much or more top of the line old/experienced talent than anyone in the country.
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Then we will have to be an at large, which will require 10 to 11 wins and likely sweeping OOC or the regular season ACC schedule. (even 10-2 with 2 P4 losses at home might not do it.). Do we have the roster for that?
 
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TriStarCane said:
Then we will have to be an at large, which will require 10 to 11 wins and likely sweeping OOC or the regular season ACC schedule. (even 10-2 with 2 P4 losses at home might not do it.). Do we have the roster for that?
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Personally no, especially if we sustain injuries in the front 7. Then it could get bad.

We were in the top 2% in terms of injury luck last season. Could it happen again? Sure, it absolutely could.

But chances are (and I’m not trying to make a tough and physical joke here fwiw), that when you practice hard and try to implement a more physical rushing attack (which I think we will lean on given our OL strength), we won’t be nearly as fortunate. And teams will look to run right at our front 7, since it’s weaker on paper whereas pass rush should be our strength.

ND is coming right for it, so we’ll be tested very early on against an elite unit in their own right. Should be a fun one but definitely a war in the trenches.
 
JayCane20 said:
Couldn’t have taken every player in the portal in the spring and ended up better than Clemson. They have 5-6 1st rounders coming in the 2026 draft.

Maybe we have more depth but they have as much or more top of the line old/experienced talent than anyone in the country.
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Clemson has frontline players in key spots but they have their own question marks. 90th in yards per rush against is a big red flag. Miami pushed them around in 2023, with Mauigoa and Bain in particular making highlight reels as true freshmen.

Both teams have new DCs so let’s see how those units progress.
 
JayCane20 said:
Couldn’t have taken every player in the portal in the spring and ended up better than Clemson. They have 5-6 1st rounders coming in the 2026 draft.

Maybe we have more depth but they have as much or more top of the line old/experienced talent than anyone in the country.
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I find it to be an interesting preseason number. I think it’ll end up being 3 to 4 first rounders.
 
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Derrick Griffin said:
I find it to be an interesting preseason number. I think it’ll end up being 3 to 4 rounders.
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Biggest thing for me is that our DBs last season would get eaten alive by their WRs. If we’re fortunate enough to play them in the title game, at least I’d feel more comfortable in that department (still definite edge to the Clemson trio WRs, however. They nailed all their evals there).

D$ is right though - Texas ran all over them and they had a deep RB room + elite OL play. I’m not even a big Jaydon Blue guy, and he had a field day. Would expect a similar style from our end, and keep their pass rushers from rearing back.

Clemson would be favored by about 4 on a neutral if that game were today. Pre spring, it was about 5 and change…so we did cut the gap. Now we have to prove we can develop these recruits that we’re relying on to fill key roles, and then everyone can adjust accordingly.
 
Bender said:
Our team is better vs last year, because our defense will make a far bigger jump upwards vs our offense regressing.

Only concern for me is LBers. I'm getting the feeling that Hetherman precisely looked for a LB who can communicate his defense. It's simplified in regards to coverage for the back end, but the LBers have to read and attack their keys in split seconds. We're going to play some weird fronts and blitz a lot, even with D-Linemen dropping back into coverage.
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Got to throw special teams in there.
We can cheat some hidden yardage with the very good PR/KR's we just picked up.

The key will be Auburn.
Borregales was great, but we only attempted 19 fg's.
We'll be in the mid/upper 20's this year. Auburn has to get back to 80%+.
64% (long of 47) wont cut it.
 
WeBallinBoyz said:
Personally no, especially if we sustain injuries in the front 7. Then it could get bad.

We were in the top 2% in terms of injury luck last season. Could it happen again? Sure, it absolutely could.

But chances are (and I’m not trying to make a tough and physical joke here fwiw), that when you practice hard and try to implement a more physical rushing attack (which I think we will lean on given our OL strength), we won’t be nearly as fortunate. And teams will look to run right at our front 7, since it’s weaker on paper whereas pass rush should be our strength.

ND is coming right for it, so we’ll be tested very early on against an elite unit in their own right. Should be a fun one but definitely a war in the trenches.
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Injury luck was huge. Know what else we did last year? Avoided 3rd downs. We averaged 12 per game, which was top 10 nationally. When we got them? Convert 56% of them, #1 by a lot. We averaged 1.5 Fourth Downs per game and went for it at least 1x per game and converted over 70% of the time. We were able to keep our offense on the field at an astronomical clip. We will regress there this year. Which means more possessions for our defense. We can take it from there. It’s not just that we had a high scoring offense; it was efficient and it kept the ball. Can we hold up to an extra 2 or 3 defensive possessions a game?
 
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