Offense will be much better, defense will certainly be worse. But there is really good young talent and I still think it's going to be the best defense in the conference.
All the hand wringing about RB kills me. RB is the easiest position to replace and the easiest to insert someone young. Pleasant, McGrew or Ahmed all have enough talent to make the All Pac team if they're the back of choice. None of them are Gaskin but they're plenty good enough in this offense/with this line.
OL will be as good or better (losing McGary but you get a full season of Trey and everyone else is a year older).
WRs will be much better (Jones takes another step, Fuller/Baccelia take another step and/or more young guys move into the rotation).
TEs will be much better (full season of Hunter).
But the key is going to be Eason. If he's the kid who played for Georgia we'll looser 3 games and hate everything. If he's a legit star this team might not lose until the playoff. The schedule is that good.
My guess is the defense gives up around two more points a game but the offense scores 6 or 8 more points a game.
We'll be better.
i have been betting that the d will get worse and for the past 2 years kawasaki and jimmy have proven me wrong. i am not going to bet the d will be worse
It’s going to be the first year of the Kwat/Pete era that UW didn’t have the clear cut best set of DL in the conference heading into the year (and almost certainly the last). That’s the primary concern, as well as potentially some lack of depth at LB and the secondary.
OTOH, the points in the 19 defenses favor are a) edge rushers! b) bad luck this year lead to few turnovers, we should force more next year (especially in light of a) c) special teams almost certainly will do a better job of setting the defense up with field position (regression to the mean if nothing else).
Like I said I think it will be the best defense in the Pac, just not as good as this years.
