Let's be honest, barring a massive miracle at the QB position, the 2015 Husky Football season is going to be a season in transition where our interest is going to be in watching the team development over the course of the season leading into the special 2016 and 2017 seasons.
I'm sure that somehow they'll find a way to get bowl eligible, but anything greater than 8-4 next year would be a MASSIVE surprise. And in fairness, 8-4 may be a stretch when you consider the following:
1) Still tremendous uncertainty at the QB position and the desire to make sure that Browning redshirts if at all possible
2) Replacement of large chunks of an average OL ... which while the newbies may be young, hungry, and ready to rumble, they'll probably have a few growing pains during the year. In the long run, this will be a better group but that might be in 2016.
3) Given the issues of 1 and 2 above, even if we were flush with skill position players, we could have offensive challenges. The reality is that we're not flush with much on offense at this point that makes you think of skill position players being anything more than average PAC caliber unless we get a strong breakout season from a true frosh or two - but what's more likely from anybody in that group that plays immediately is being a contributor that positions them into being strong contributors in 2016 forward.
4) Replacement of essentially the entire defensive front ... while I think we have some good pieces there to build upon, they are still young in some areas there and really nobody in that group has been asked to play 60+ snaps in a game before and have the consistency tied into that.
5) Potential best player on defense is Feeney if he can find consistency, but the rest of the LB position will be relatively new and mistakes will happen as this unit grows.
The only positional group that I feel relatively decent about is the secondary. Everything else is a massive question mark flush with ceilings of probably average conference play next year.
I haven't looked at what Boise returns, but that will be a tough game. So will Utah State. Going 1-1 in those games is probably the likely result. 4-5 in conference is probably about right as well. Home games against Cal and the Cougs are probably wins as is the game at Oregon State. Should expect to get at least a split of Arizona and Utah since the games are at home. 5-4 in conference next year is probably the best case scenario because I don't see wins @ SC, @ ASU, or @ Stanford and Oregon's got to completely shit the bed at the QB position worse than us for us to win that game at home next year.
($75,000)
