Does anyone really believe that 1) he dumbs down his system and 2) this defense will be better w/o Jaylon, Day, Okwara, Shumate, and Russell? Not to mention his glorified "on-the-field coach" Schmidt.
My best guess as of now:
DL: DE*, Rochelle, Cage, Tillery (*Trumbetti maybe?)
LB: Onwualu, Martini, Morgan, Coney
Corner: Crawford, Luke
Safety: Redfield, S* (*I honestly don't know...Mykelti Williams maybe?)
Are those your regulars? Pretty solid lineup. Talent-wise, looks like a potential Top 25 defense...but on paper, they basically had the same thing this year, no?
You did forget about Jarron.
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I'll say this: BVG did not earn his paycheck this year outside of containing Clemson in inclement weather and shutting down the triple option attacks we saw from Ga Tech and Navy (and giving him credit for the latter may be generous).
Losing Jaylon is a monster loss but we have a lot of recruited talent on this team and we have another quality class joining this spring/summer. If we can't put together a top 25 defense (and that's not asking too much), BVG needs to find another place to coach. His attacking scheme results in too much vulnerability without the payoff of TFL and TOs.
Going back to the starting line-up, let's look at our options on defense not including the incoming freshman class:
DE: Trumbetti, Rochell, Blankenship, Hayes?, Bonner?, Randolph,
DT: J. Jones, Cage, Tillery, Mokwuah, Dew-Treadway, Matuska, Tiassum, Elijah Taylor
LB: N. Morgan, Bilal, Coney, Onwualu, Martini, Barajas, (thin here but the freshman class will hopefully include some contributors)
CB: KVR possibly 30/70, Watkins, Butler, Luke, Crawford, Coleman,
S: White, M. Williams, Fertitta, Tranquil, Sebastian, Redfield
We are thin at safety and LB but we have a load of talent on this roster and a lot more top talent coming in. This class looks like it could finish in the top 10-15.
There are not 25 teams with more talent on their defensive roster. I believe we'll put up points in batches next year but we need to have a competent and aggressive 2-deep to make us a playoff contender. We can't waste this talent now that we have two QBs who can lead the team.