I think it's really important that people remember what we've gone to battle with this year vs last year.
I'm not even going to go through the defense because we literally replaced every starter except McCray. But that's 10 of 11 starters on defense. Yes they've been much better than expected, but that's still a ton to replace and a lot of youth out there.
On offense, we lost our four best receiving targets, three of which are in the NFL (Darboh, Chesson, and Butt) and one of which transferred for family reasons (Asiasi). And then to add to the problem, we lost our best freshman wide receiver for the season when Black went down.
We are replacing our starting running back, who though he wasn't a great runner, did a great job blocking, something we desperately miss this year.
On the offensive line, Kalis, Braden and Magnuson weren't elite and their issues, but we clearly took some of what they did for granted. Probably most important, we had Newsome last year vs PSU. I've contended for several weeks that this OL looks a lot better if Newsome is our LT and Cole is at RT. Just some bad luck.
We also don't have that "wow" playmaker in Peppers anymore.
But the bigger loss is Speight. I know that he had looked shaky at times earlier this year. But he also was by far our best option at QB and a clear step up at QB. I don't think he makes a difference last night, but I absolutely think he does vs MSU.
Finally, on special teams, we lost our best punt returner, our best kick returner, our punter, and our placekicker. Only one of those (PK) has been adequately replaced. And I noted this in a post before the season - we got a lot of hidden yards and great field position from our special teams last year that I was concerned would be hard to replace. And it has been.
So to recap - with the exception of about 5 players, the team we trotted out last night wasn't the same team that played PSU last year. Sometimes you can overcome youth and inexperience. Sometimes you can't.
Do I expect the coaches to do better? Yeah, probably. But this was a game most of us were concerned about since August regardless. Let's see how we finish up.
I'm not even going to go through the defense because we literally replaced every starter except McCray. But that's 10 of 11 starters on defense. Yes they've been much better than expected, but that's still a ton to replace and a lot of youth out there.
On offense, we lost our four best receiving targets, three of which are in the NFL (Darboh, Chesson, and Butt) and one of which transferred for family reasons (Asiasi). And then to add to the problem, we lost our best freshman wide receiver for the season when Black went down.
We are replacing our starting running back, who though he wasn't a great runner, did a great job blocking, something we desperately miss this year.
On the offensive line, Kalis, Braden and Magnuson weren't elite and their issues, but we clearly took some of what they did for granted. Probably most important, we had Newsome last year vs PSU. I've contended for several weeks that this OL looks a lot better if Newsome is our LT and Cole is at RT. Just some bad luck.
We also don't have that "wow" playmaker in Peppers anymore.
But the bigger loss is Speight. I know that he had looked shaky at times earlier this year. But he also was by far our best option at QB and a clear step up at QB. I don't think he makes a difference last night, but I absolutely think he does vs MSU.
Finally, on special teams, we lost our best punt returner, our best kick returner, our punter, and our placekicker. Only one of those (PK) has been adequately replaced. And I noted this in a post before the season - we got a lot of hidden yards and great field position from our special teams last year that I was concerned would be hard to replace. And it has been.
So to recap - with the exception of about 5 players, the team we trotted out last night wasn't the same team that played PSU last year. Sometimes you can overcome youth and inexperience. Sometimes you can't.
Do I expect the coaches to do better? Yeah, probably. But this was a game most of us were concerned about since August regardless. Let's see how we finish up.
