That's impressive! I always thought great basketball players were the best all-around athletes. Our OL is a big question, but here's a little info:
The starting center that transferred to Kansas was basically "encouraged" to go. He could've been a great one but he was more interested in the shot put, spending his spring practicing THAT, and much injured during the season. Elko basically showed him the door.
OL was BEYOND bad the last couple of years because of our Assistant that Jimbo hired but refused to fire. The Aggie base was up in arms over his refusal to replace Addazio. Reportedly, when Elko came in, they did nothing but focus on "unlearning" EVERYTHING they had been taught under the previous regime. It's not that we had bad talent, just horrible coaching and schemes. We also brought in some nice pieces. No one has any idea how good or bad they will be, except our LT is supposed to be very good, and the moved of our young RT to RG was supposed to have been a great one. We will see.
Re our secondary, yes we brought in new guys, but that is a GOOD thing. We are actually much better off talent-wise there, but of course it's new guys and first game so again, a wait-and-see thing. The great thing is that we have Elko back after a DC that (common theme under Jimbo, who we are realizing was horrible) was a very questionable DC.
Our DL is by far our strength. Yes, we lost some, but we also brought in a great talent from Purdue (a local kid) who is preseason All-America to go with our very deep 4 and 5 star talent along the front. We have talent and depth there. Our LB situation is finally firming up also after years of being very thin, but we did lose a great one in Edgerrin Cooper- Green Bay 2nd round pick. Taurean York was Freshmand All-Amercan last year and will be our main piece at LB. Looking forward to what Elko does with him as he is masterful at disguising and delaying blitzes. York is very fast, a good tackler (not big), and just a very good football IQ.
In general, the 30 or so transfers out were guys that left because lack of playing time or otherwise "encouraged" to leave. We supposedly did very well in the transfer portal- partly by necessity and design as Elko was a new coach and purposely kept our HS recruiting numbers low when he came on board. I think he had a pretty good idea of what kind of players he needed NOW to go with the talent he had on hand, and with A&M's resources was able to mostly fill that out the way he wanted.
Offens WR is a big ????? though we do have one stud (Noah Thomas- very tall, lanky, good hands). Walker is sometimes very good and sometimes just drops easy passes right to him. We also have some new guys that are supposed to be good and they talk like they think they're going to be very good. By the way, that Alabama takeoff picture- that was a self-deprecating humor thing put together by our practice squad guys. Maybe like an 80 yr old granny might strike a Rocky pose at the top of those Philly steps.
RB we have two decent ball carriers, but we did lose our back-up to season-ending injury last week. Leveon Moss is a 6ft 215lb jr. 4-star from Louisiana with 10.8 speed in the 100m. Amari Daniels is a 5ft8" 200lb senior from Miami with 4.5 speed. He's pretty fast and shifty, but hasn't really knocked anyone's socks off. They should be smart given their experience and they can catch the ball.
Our TEs are question marks, but we do have one that could be pretty special. He missed all of last year with a pre-season injury. This will be his 2nd full season. 6' 4" 265 lb Donovan Green- a freshman All-America honorable mention that came on at the end of the '22 season.
How (and IF) it all comes together in Game 1 is yet to be seen. We certainly have a tough row to hoe in ND. We are most fortunate that the game will be played under the lights in the 2nd half. Kyle Field is really a special place at night. I'm hoping we keep it close enough the 1st half while we work out all the kinks of our new program, so that we have a shot in the 2nd half.
I'm thinking the final score will be in the 27-24 range, whichever team wins.
Sounds like a lot of potential, good amount of production and some question marks.
We find ourselves in a similar situation.
Your DL is obviously the strongest unit on your team. At this point, I think it's a tossup between our DL and our secondary. ND has two of the top 10 DTs per PFF returning this year (we're hoping one of them is 100% for game time). We have an All-American corner, another who has looked good and a reigning Bednarik-winning safety manning the backend. We have a soph and 5th yr senior battling for the other safety position and a few other DBs pushing for nickel/3rd safety reps.
The ND DEs are nowhere near as accomplished as your group but I'm hopeful that the committee will be strong. Early reports are that we have a few good options but the game will show us more.
Our LBs look good on paper. We returned PFF's highest graded LB from last year in Kiser and we expect him to be a mainstay for this game. We have another 3-4 who'll likely be rotated in. Names with the highest chance of being disrupters are Sneed and Kyngstonn (KVA).
OL is a mess by ND standards, at least from the outside. We're just waiting to see what kind of mess. I'm expecting at least 4 sacks because it'll be loud, we're young and inexperienced and your edges will probably get in their heads a few times after some explosive jumps at the snap.
WRs are stronger than last year thanks to some key transfers and development in the young receiving group. Have to wait and see which of them is ready to step up in prime time.
Our RBs should be a top 15 unit in terms of production and athleticism.
Jeremiyah Love is a name for the game, he'll be moved all over. He's a 10.54 (PR) guy from high school. Had a solid freshman campaign and all indications are he's the lead. Jadarian Price (TX recruit) has finally fully recovered from a torn achilles that happened prior to his freshman campaign so he'll be getting work as well.
Aneyas Wiliams and Kedren Young (TX recruit) are the two heralded freshman who'll likely have roles in the game but we don't know what they'll be.
TEs: we're in a good place but we're hoping our starter is fully recovered. Mitchell Evans put on a clinic last year prior to injury that sidelined him for the remainder. Many of us have been waiting for Eli Raridon to take off, he's another 6'6 athletic basketball player who has good ball skills but he was injured in his first couple years. Cooper Flanagan is reportedly challenging for TE2 reps and we usually like to use our TEs, so somewhat noteworthy.
Our punter sounds like a potential weapon, imported from Australia (former rugby guy). He might help flip the field on occasion and the spin on his ball is reportedly very difficult to track.
Utlimately, all of the flowery language used to describe the various units means very little. We'll see which units are able to work in complementary fashion and which groups commit the fewest mistakes. Penalties, turnovers, 'fluke plays', etc. can turn a game upside down.
