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2016 and 2017 were the years. Fuck.
Gladstone
Member, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 16,417
30 years from now we'll look back at these defenses (especially the DL) and lament how awful our offense was. The pieces were in place for a championship run or two. With our recruiting failures we'll not have a DL like this for many years, if ever.
As always, fuck Johnathan Smith.
As always, fuck Johnathan Smith.
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The DL might dropoff (okay, almost certainly will). But the improvement at QB, WR and OC in the coming years will make up for it and then some. OL too most likely.
Improvements at QB & WR aren't going to mean much if the OL they have blocking for them is total shit. And after next season, because of Strausser's recruiting, that's what's going to happen.
Huff's been a huge step up, but we're going to have the same problem at OL that we had at WR this year... except worse, because unlike WR, offensive linemen very rarely contribute their first couple of years in the program.
The exact same thing will happen on the DL starting in 2019, sooner if Levi or String get hurt next season. Our OL & DL depth and talent going forward is a fucking joke compared to the teams we aspire to compete with.
Praise allah that Petersen was smart enough to fuck-can Strausser & Pease. He needs to do the same with Malloe, and I'm confident he will. But even if/when he does... we're not going to sniff the playoffs for a bunch of years because of the massive recruiting failures on both lines during the last couple of years.
I said 16 and 17 won't be Pete's only shot at an NC (the premise of this thread). It won't. A couple years of bad Strausser recruiting delays that, it doesn't change it, unless Pete laves.
I think he's here for at least 10 more years. If so, he makes the playoffs at least 2 or 3 times in that span.
GATSSYN
The OL next year has a chance to be our best OL in a while. I'm thinking the starting 5 next year will be in some order Adams - Bain - Harris - Wattenberg - McGary ... that's going to be a really good OL. We'll lose Adams and McGary but have the tackle replacements playing G next year in Bain and Wattenberg. I suspect that Jaxson Kirkland will be ready to play come 2019 and it wouldn't shock me if either Mele or Curne would be ready as a RS Frosh. The upper class depth may be lacking a bit in spots but as long as Huff is able to follow up this year with another solid class next year we will be fine. We're going to have 2 pretty decent OL classes in a row - really encouraging there.
DL as a whole is a big issue in 2019. We should be fine next year. We desperately need Josiah Bronson to be a significant factor. It would not shock me if we're in the transfer market this offseason and in the graduate transfer market after the 2018 season (possibly even this season).
I'm more aligned to the idea that we can do better than Malloe. That being said, let's also see how the class ends up. Regardless it looks like we're going to have a strong class in terms of quantity with while we may not have a huge number of elite guys, we have a number of guys that project to be at worst very solid rotational players that will form a really nice core in the DL starting as early as 2020.
As it stands right now, 2019 is shaping up to be a bit of a potential rebuilding year ... we're going to be replacing Browning at QB and even though we'll have talented options to choose from, it'd be far from shocking if we'll have some growing pains there. On the OL, we won't be terrible but we'll likely be starting a RS Jr - RS Soph - Sr - RS Frosh - FR Soph along the line. It's possible to probable that we'll have some really good skill position players on offense. We should be ok in the secondary although not a complete given as we could lose a lot after next year (will lose Miller and McIntosh to graduation, could lose Rapp and Murphy to the Draft). LB is a bit of an unknown as there will be a bit of a transition in 2018 and we won't have a great view until we see how guys like Eifler are progressing as part of the rotation next year. And then obviously the DL is a bit of an issue. It could be a situation where the offense will need to outscore some teams and an 8-4 or 9-3 year is very possible. But by 2020, we should be back to being in very good shape on both sides of the ball with the offense in a position where they could be very, very elite.