Oh I get it. And hope they are readyThe Jackal wrote: ↑Thu Dec 14, 2023 10:13 pmMy guess is we’ll have a lot of third or fourth year players who’ve played a lot of football getting the opportunity to start.
They may not be household names, but they aren’t newbies.
I just find it funny the slight “double talk”.
We say “they are Starters for a reason”! Meaning better than the backups. If the backups were better they would START.
Then some here almost seem excited for the backup. I’ll keep Blackshear any day of the week. His return WAS HUGE. he was a menace with Interceptions and pick 6s all year.
We also knew this was a special team because of EXPERIENCE. and, as Jackal said, a senior signal caller. Well - as it stands now - we have neither of those.
That said my primary concern is the OL. NOTHING correlates more to success and especially first 6 game success than returning STARTS ON THE OL. Great article on that a while back via sports illustrated. Very interesting. You could almost tie first 6 game vs Vegas spread and general success to return8ng STarts on offensive line. 3 or more returning starters yielded beating the spread and usually an extra win (4-2. Vs. 3-3) early season. 2 or less returning Starters - REGARDLESS OF PLAY PARTICIPATION by backups now starting (found that interesting) - you usually didn’t cover spreads and, more importantly dropped an extra game.
They were measuring 20 years of data versus expected WIN TOTAL for the year. 2 returning starters on OL? Typically those teams fall a win short of expectations. Like my 7.5 OU win total
I would be VERY HAPPY to win 8 games next year. Reg season.
Next season will be very telling as to overall depth and quality of our development… 7 wins ? Good. But Not quite the sustained success after two 10 win seasons. I expect a dip. 8 wins ? Ok. Maybe we have become consistent would be great !!!
Don’t want the 2004. 2005. Drop to 2006.
Again I expect a little drop. But hope for 8-3