FOOTBALL Going into this spring game.......

[MTsumner92]

the two biggest concerns I have are on the lines of scrimmage. We have two returning starters on the OL and none on the DL. This is not a good recipe for success.

I do believe that the two most talented OL returning are back but we lost 3 seasoned guys. I don't see a rosy scenario where there is no dropoff in performance to start the season. Bohanon did have two starts last year and if you add up the collective starts of our OL it equals about 40? Not good. I really don't have a gauge for how good the new starters will be.

On the DL it is even worse. On the bright side we have two talented people coming in to help. We have a talented Manciel but he is still woefully undersized. Poydras is big but is he good? Nix is strong as an ox so he can at least be somewhat of an anchor. Unfortunately there are too many unknowns. Two deep is not looking good at this point in time as well. Lot of bodies at DE but no one stands out except potentially Brady.

I see a situation where we start out 0-4. I haven't been this negative in a long time. We really don't have much information to go on at this point in time. 2018 looks good though.

 

[sWiley]

I think OL will be OK. Johnson & Brewer will anchor it and they'll piece it out from there. Tony Franklin has always been good about getting offensive production regardless of his personnel so I'm really not worried about that. He's got an uncanny way of hiding the weaknesses on his offense and exploiting the strengths.

With regards to defense, there's two ways to approach it. 1. We were god awful last year so do we even want any returning DL players, or 2. The inexperience will be too much to overcome.

Personally, I believe it's going to come down to the DT position and whether or not we can stop the run. If we can force teams to be one dimensional and throw the ball, we'll be OK. If we can't do that, we are screwed. Stopping the run all starts with good DT's. If we can force them to double team us inside, then our DE's and LB's will run the show. I think Shafer will figure it out sooner rather than later. Last year, I predicted that we would go 8-5 and lose in an embarrassing bowl game (Unfortunately I couldn't have been more right.)

Sadly, for 2017, until Stockstill & Stockstill show me otherwise, I'm predicting just another mediocre season. We'll start the season 0-3 and then go 6-1 through the conference before losing @ WKU to once again ruin our CUSA title hopes. Final season record will be 7-5 with 2 conference losses. I think we'll get matched against a really bad bowl team this year and win it, going 8-5 overall again, but still no CUSA title. Same ole same ole.

 

[blueraiderJT]

We got Brady coming in at DE. That guy was a Freshman All american at Mizzou in 2015. He led the nation in sacks as a freshman (7). Serious upgrade since we had a walk on there for 4 years that we are replacing. I hear he is doing great in camp and loves it here. He's a serious upgrade. Also, reports out of camp so far are saying that on the DL, we are a lot quicker off the snap. Shafer knows how to stop the run and I guarantee you that we will be in better position this season and will improve because of it.

The Vandy game is a great game to start with because we know what they are gonna do. They are gonna give the ball to Webb and Blassingame for 4 quarters and try to run it down our throat. I think we will no longer be playing 10 yards off of the receiver or dropping our LB's 6 yards off of the LOS during and obvious run play.

 

[mtfblue]

we will be an attacking defense again, that's make s it easier to get off the ball and make plays

 

[RaiderDoug]

Could the defense realistically be any worse?

I'm not really kidding about that - at some point ,simply trotting out warm bodies will, at least from time to time, stop the opposing offense. That's about the level of defense we got last year.

It will be better because it simply can't be worse.

 

[dukewayne]

Could the defense realistically be any worse?

I'm not really kidding about that - at some point ,simply trotting out warm bodies will, at least from time to time, stop the opposing offense. That's about the level of defense we got last year.

It will be better because it simply can't be worse.

I'm one of those who believe it can always get worse; however, I'm hopeful this won't be one of those cases this upcoming season.

I actually liked Nix's enthusiasm, but not much else was working particularly Xs and Os and player development. There just wasn't any signs of things getting any better. Signs looked worse actually. Sadly, there were quite a few highly talented players who were never really able to play to their potential due to the system and play calling etc etc.

Hopefully the new DC can start to improve things on the defensive side of the ball most ricky tick!

If the defense can start to perform just decently combined with MT's potent offense, MT football could actually improve and have pretty good success.

 

[AustinLewis]

Article was posted earlier this week, but here are 5 things to watch for this saturday.

https://middletennessee.rivals.com/news/it-s-a-spring-thing