Barring injuries, we will be an elite team on paper with respect to talent and experience. Offensively, we should be able to roll along, I am not worried at all about the wide receiver position. All we need there is a deep THREAT, not an NFL caliber receiver. We have some fast guys that can stretch the defense and keep secondaries honest. Also, our coaches have confidence in our quarterback to let it fly on occassion, and sometimes an incompletion is just as effective as a long pass. Sometimes better, because instead of scoring a quick touchdown, we control the offense with our hogs up front and our studs carrying the ball. We have a lot of elite weapons here at running back, quarterback and tight end.
However, our achilles heel, as it always is with our teams, is our defensive line. To me, last year, Jaleel Johnson and Nathan Bazata were just as valuable as any other player on the team. To be able to control the line of scrimmage, keep the linemen off of our linebackers, contain the quarterback up the middle and stop the run on first down, all with very little help (Faith was it), was in my eyes heroic. And I am not exaggerating. Our season will depend on these three guys and hopefully some surprise development of depth. They will be elite for 55-65 plays per game. However, if we get into a situation where we dont have an early lead to make the opposition one dimensional, turnovers, and or our defensive ends under perform, we will be in a dog fight if we give up 80, 90 or 100 plays. Other coaches will try to exploit this, to do anything to run a lot of plays, even if they are fruitless. This is typically why Northwestern and Indiana give us trouble.
