Disco Missile

But I still think VY should've come back in 2006, so...

That's not exactly true. An athlete's 3rd year is typically their first year as a true veteran player. They're more craftsman than journeyman. They've spent 2 or 3 years in S&C and honing their skills. Third year is usually the year it all comes together. The final year of eligibility is the one usually focused on the next level. The third year was polish. The fourth year is showing out. By foregoing their final year some guys don't give themselves that chance. One more year of maturity can do wonders, and almost never hurts a guy that was good enough to leave the previous year.

I hadn't thought about that. That is dumb.

Well, that didn't go as well as he hoped.

Bryant gets beaned Posting since he seems to be okay. Quite a shot. Helmet does a 360

Cubs up 6-0, bot 3rd. No word on Bryant though

Bryant took a knock to the head and left the game

Last year the RB position was by committee, like several other positions. Warren and Porter started the year going essentially 50/50, although Warren got the majority of receptions out of the backfield and Porter did more pass pro. However, Warren got more than half of his seasons total yardage vs. SJSU and eventually lost carries to Carter. By KSU Carter was getting as many carries as Porter and Warren, but Carter was in trouble with the coaches for much of the season for mistakes, practice issues, and who knows what, so he didn't get the playing time his production called for. By Baylor, Young emerged as the top performer and by Kansas he was the primary RB. 2017 RB stats: Daniel Young - 373 yards, 4.6 ypc, 3 TD. 153 receiving yards, 1TD Chris Warren - 314 yards, 4.4 ypc, 6 TD. 229 receiving yards, 2 TD Kyle Porter - 261 yards, 3.1 ypc, 4 TD. 43 receiving yards, 1 TD Toneil Carter - 252 yards, 4.8 ypc, 3 TD. 31 receiving yards, 1 TD. This year the starting spot is once again for grabs. Young and Carter underperformed in the Spring Game, and Porter is still Porter. I'll update this post weekly during the season with stats.

Very disappointed with both Young and Carter in the O/W game. I'm hoping it was because it was just the 4/21 hangover, but even that is a bad omen. Young was our only bright spot at RB last year. Carter did well for several games, but Young was better. I don't understand Porter. He has talent but it doesn't show on game day. Meanwhile Yoder the walk-on and Houston shine in the spring.

Last year Buechele was a 65% passer. Ehlinger was around 57%. And that was with terrible pass protection. They'll do better with an improved OL and a year of experience.

I haven't seen anything about Okafor to G. Why you say that? I was hoping Grandy would be a plug-and-play RG but I think he has a way to go. I thought ERod was serviceable. Imade as well. Our interior line had only a few miscues and did fairly well run blocking. I am interested to see where and how Hudson fits in. He has a lot to offer and our line will be better with him in it.

I swapped my Ls and Rs for some reason. Fixed it on the edits.

So it looks like the rumors about the coaches liking Cosmi at LT are true. He's probably the future there. Anderson probably starting LT this year. I like moving Kerstetter to C (probably as a backup) and I bet he's either the RT or backup RT. ERod down to guard. Probably be Vahe at LG, ERod at RG, and Imade as #1 backup. RT either Kerstetter or Okafor. Urquidez just can't do pass pro yet.

I suppose I am. I spend about half of my time reading things I'm pretty sure I'll like. The other half is split between books I've read but still enjoy, and new stuff I'm trying out. I liked Annihilation because it was a rare type of horror/suspense sci-fi that really works when executed well. I thought Vandermeer did a masterful job of depicting a descent into madness type narrative, where the reader could never be certain about anything and many things only made sense in retrospect. Contrast that with King's blunt presentations, and I appreciate the subtlety. Vandermeer also has a really polished prose style, and every sentence and word choice reinforces the overarching narrative. I think Annihilation left so many questions at the end that a sequel was a near certainty. I just read Authority and now I'm reading Acceptance. Authority was slowww until the last chapter or two. The suspense wasn't there because you already knew what the characters are dealing with. It was more of wanting the main character to figure it the %$#@ out and move the story along. It had more of a Body Snatchers or The Thing vibe to it, but wasn't as well executed as Annihilation. It felt like some of the Thomas Harris books. Unsettling with tons of bureaucracy and frustrations where the protagonist is contending with multiple forces all fighting for control while the true menace lurks and escapes notice because of all the petty rivalries. I didn't enjoy it, but it added some pieces that Annihilation left out. I'll follow up when I'm done with Acceptance. From what I've heard it answers a lot of the questions left by the first two books. Part of me hopes not, because answering those questions will kill part of what makes it work.

I'm high on the defense, in particular our pass defense with our DEs and the freshmen at LB and DB looking game ready in the O/W game. But I see our offense as a limitation again. Not the festering wound it was last year, but it didn't improve enough to get us where we want to be. We'll be competitive in all of our games but we'll drop a few and get upset at least once.

Last year's OL issues were an anomaly, but a recurrence is possible. While the injuries and attrition were higher than average, the lack of depth was the real problem. The loss of 5 upperclassmen puts us at risk once again. If, however, we have a 'normal' amount of injuries we should be better. Probably not the big leap we were hoping for but improvement nonetheless.

Well, we hope. Urquidez got smoked multiple times. How much of that was due to our elite DEs is hard to say though.

During the Spring Game, Kerstetter was trying C and Okafor was at tackle. During practices, E Rod was at RG, but I didn't see where he was in the O/W game.

That's one of the things that struck me when I took my first look at the roster. We keep hoping for the rebuild to take off, but our roster is still wonky. Strong fixed some Mack mistakes but made several of his own. Herman seems to be doing better than either of them, but his guys are only Sophs. It will take some time before it evens out.

Fixed

Roster breakdown by class: OFFENSE: 40: 6/9/10/15 DEFENSE: 40: 11/6/8/15 ST: 3: 1/0/0/2

Moving the conversation here. I requested that the other thread be deleted.

I wasn't consistent with RS status. Urquidez, Imade, and Hudson are all RS Sophomores. Vahe, Okafor, and Shackelford are the only true upperclassmen on the OL.

Last year we had 15 scholarship linemen. Cuney, CW55, McMillon, Nickelson, and Anderson all departed. That left our Spring roster looking like this: SR: Rodriguez, Vahe JR: Urquidez, Okafor, Imade, Shackelford SO: Kerstetter, Hudson, Grandy (out with head injury) RsFR: Cosmi We add these guys in the fall, bringing us back to 15: Angilau, Ghirmai, Moore, Jones, and Anderson. The good news is that our OL roster is finally showing good depth and stability as well as talent. The bad news is that we're light on talented upperclassmen (yet again) and Herman's recent recruiting won't have a real effect until 2019-2020. Anderson is really the wild card. If he plays like he has and stays healthy, our young guys have a rock at LT to solidify the line. If he doesn't pan out, our improvement over last year won't be so dramatic.

Full game: YouTube