As much as 2019 missed expectations, 2020 could over perform vs. expectations. My rationale:
1. Numbers - don’t overlook the benefit of walkon program. Say you lose a starting LB to injury or Covid, you get a Reimers type to step in.
2. QB - I think Adrian is better than 2018. Right now, after a sophomore slump there isn’t much hype. His poor 2019 was due to a variety of factors, including injury, putting on too much weight and horrendous line play. He should be the best in the West. And to reiterate, the line will be light years ahead. Even with an injury/infection or two, we have very good depth there. Which leads to...
3 Offensive line - I am a big believer than you build a team from the line out. We have a solid, and deep OL (back to numbers).
4. Receivers/TE - even though we lost Spielman my hunch is we are better and deeper than in the past. TE FOR SURE will be better given everyone is back + Vokolek. For the first time in a while we will have solid “bid body” WRs.
5. Linebacker - seriously, LB play can only go up.
6. Secondary - very solid returning pieces and lots of depth.
7. Defensive line - here is where I differ from others. While we will take a 1/2 step back on the starting DL, the starters have been in the program for a long time. They are serviceable. What makes this unit comparable to a slightly better is the depth and a rotation. Given the way we play offense you have to rotate your DL in and I think this will help should we play a reasonably full complement of games this year
8. Special teams - this will be 180 degrees better, even losing Spielman. This assumes our Aussie punter can arrive. The uptick is a variety of factors - new, fresh outlook/coaching. Much better pieces/parts in terms of punters/kickers. More depth to actually block on punt returns and kickoffs as well as cover.
9. Schedule - somehow I think long flights to the east coast will get scrapped. Our 10 (more likely 8) game season may be focused on playing on divisional games. I will be so bold as to say the furthest east type teams (PSU, Rutgers, Maryland) don’t play the furthest west teams to shorten up flights. Give me 2 servings of IA with a new QB and I think we win 2. Give me 2 servings of Wisconsin and we win 1.
Maybe it’s August koolaide but I think we over perform. And last year I thought we’d under perform the hype, though no where near to the point we did.
First, yeah its Koolaide until we start to do things better than we have the last three years.
And second, does anyone other than me long for the days when we didnt really worry about the other teams, we just worried about being Nebraska? I really miss those days .
GBR