It will be difficult to call us a "young" team next year.
On Defense:
Most likely, every position will be started by a Junior or Senior that has started at one time or another and 5 of those starters (Wingard, Epps, Wilson, Granderson & Ghaifan) on defense will be ALL-MWC caliber players. The back-ups won't be slouches either as by a rough guess we will have approximately 7 positions on defense that will have the back-ups from this season will be there next year, plus we have some impressive talent that redshirted this year (Blankenbaker CB, Coldon CB, Dunayski DT, Gandy S & Jones DE)
The big loses on defense will be: Rico Gafford, CB, Robert Priester, CB, Nela Lolohea DE & Jalen Ortiz SAM along with Tim Kamana back-up at SS.
On Offense:
We have 7 positions on offense that should be manned by upper classmen by my rough guess at this time (Watson FB, Price WR, Conway WR, Fort TE, Wallace OT, Jackson OG & Rush OG). Overall on offense we should have 8 or so starters back on offense. The biggest unknown is QB and RB position imo. We could have the same guys back at the RB position and hope for improvement through maturity. We have several options at the QB position that will need to be sorted out. On offense we had several impressive athletes that redshirted (Abojei OL, Arnold OL, Spurlin-Renfroe WR & Vander Waal QB).
The big loses on offense will be: Josh Allen QB & Ryan Cummings OT.
My take is that the depth chart on the offensive side of the ball is much more "fluid" than the defensive side of the ball for obvious reasons. We have used the moniker that we are a "young" team for so long it will be kind of refreshing not to use it anymore. I do feel that we can officially throw away the moniker that the Pokes are a "young team" next year, but of course at this early date that is assuming that there isn't a lot of attrition after the season is totally over or that a bunch of underclassmen don't burst on the scene for next season.
On Defense:
Most likely, every position will be started by a Junior or Senior that has started at one time or another and 5 of those starters (Wingard, Epps, Wilson, Granderson & Ghaifan) on defense will be ALL-MWC caliber players. The back-ups won't be slouches either as by a rough guess we will have approximately 7 positions on defense that will have the back-ups from this season will be there next year, plus we have some impressive talent that redshirted this year (Blankenbaker CB, Coldon CB, Dunayski DT, Gandy S & Jones DE)
The big loses on defense will be: Rico Gafford, CB, Robert Priester, CB, Nela Lolohea DE & Jalen Ortiz SAM along with Tim Kamana back-up at SS.
On Offense:
We have 7 positions on offense that should be manned by upper classmen by my rough guess at this time (Watson FB, Price WR, Conway WR, Fort TE, Wallace OT, Jackson OG & Rush OG). Overall on offense we should have 8 or so starters back on offense. The biggest unknown is QB and RB position imo. We could have the same guys back at the RB position and hope for improvement through maturity. We have several options at the QB position that will need to be sorted out. On offense we had several impressive athletes that redshirted (Abojei OL, Arnold OL, Spurlin-Renfroe WR & Vander Waal QB).
The big loses on offense will be: Josh Allen QB & Ryan Cummings OT.
My take is that the depth chart on the offensive side of the ball is much more "fluid" than the defensive side of the ball for obvious reasons. We have used the moniker that we are a "young" team for so long it will be kind of refreshing not to use it anymore. I do feel that we can officially throw away the moniker that the Pokes are a "young team" next year, but of course at this early date that is assuming that there isn't a lot of attrition after the season is totally over or that a bunch of underclassmen don't burst on the scene for next season.
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