The Victors

1. It's weird that we seem so much more talented on offense than defense. For instance, we could have five five-stars on the field on offense: Bryce, Hiter, Moa, Ffrench, and Babalola. On defense, we don't have anyone with that recruiting pedigree, save for Carter Meadows. Maybe Lawrence Marshall if you squint hard enough. On the one hand, that can sometimes happen with an offensive head coach. On the other hand, if Sherrone was trying to recreate the 2023 team, that was definitely a defense-first team.

1a. While the offense is mostly homegrown (Ffrench and Buchanan seem like they are going to be the only two transfers who are going to get a lot of playing time unless Norton starts at RG), the defense is going to be full of transfers; JHD, Staehling, Bracey, and Smith-Snowden all seem likely to start. That indicates that we put more emphasis on recruiting on the offense in the last few years and/or our development was better on that side of the ball.

2. I don't love the combo of our weaknesses at DT and LB combined with Alex Drain's post yesterday about the fact that most of the teams we will be playing have good running backs. We're about to find out if the program strategy of de-emphasizing LB in the NIL budget is a good one. I wonder whether some opponents are going to use heavy formations to force us to play three linebackers. I could see Iowa doing that. Maybe Penn State as well.

3. To state the obvious, we could really use Vallejo and Meadows popping in year one because they will raise the ceiling on the defensive line. With an above-average DL and secondary, then we should be able to get away with meh linebackers.

4. The hosts are REALLY high on Smith Snowden, which would be great because that nickel spot is so important. If he hits, then going from Dax Hill to Sainristil to Smith Snowden would be a great trio. We've come a long way from the 2006 team getting sunk because it had two corners and then no ability to deal with opponents who went three- and four-wide.