Back on August 1st I posted my expectations for the season. I don't get into picking W/Ls for the season as those are just beyond silly. Why? Because folks don't break down both teams and only look at their own team. My only preseason expectations on W/Ls were: we'd beat UMass, Jax State and Cuse and that we'd lose at Clemson. Got 3/4 of those right.
My expectations were on how we'd LOOK as an organization and how we'd do in several offensive and defensive metrics.
Here is how we did based on my preseason expectations:
Our team will be better overall. Reasons include:
We have to improve on defense to get to where we want to go, but improvement on offense is even more important. We were simply abysmal in games where Milton was the starter and struggled mightily on offense in games where our OL went up against solid DLs (after ND) such as Clemson, NCSU and UF.
We must improve on the OL if we want to take the next step towards getting back to respectability. If we want to get to NCSU and Wake level ... being ranked and being an 8 or 9 win team ... then the next step is to get a good OL.
OL is the foundation upon which all else is built.
But with that said, we must improve most in these areas:
My expectations were on how we'd LOOK as an organization and how we'd do in several offensive and defensive metrics.
Here is how we did based on my preseason expectations:
Our team will be better overall. Reasons include:
- Better overall organization and team discipline - met this expectation
- Better culture - easily met this expection
- Better health, strength and conditioning - met this one, but still plenty of room for improvement
- Better implementation of systems and player development - met this one too, but OL issues and lack of a good passing QB have not allowed for us to fully implement Norvell's offense
- Improve from 5.54 ypp to at least 6.37 ypp ... 15% improvement
- 5.79 ypp which was a 4.5% improvement - not much of an improvement
- Improve from 396.7 ypg to at least 456.2 ypg ... 15% improvement
- 379.1 ypg which was a DECLINE
- Improve in Scoring Offense by a whole TD from 25.8 ppg to 32.8 ppg
- 27.6 ppg which was an improvement of 1.8 ppg - not much of an improvement
- Improve in ypc by RBs from 6.1 to 6.4 ... 5% improvement
- 6.1 ypc by RB which was the same as last year - no improvement (was really bad second half of season too)
- Improve Sacks Allowed rate from 3.22 sacks per game to at most 2.58 sacks per game ... 20% improvement
- 3.0 sacks per game - not much of an improvement (Blackman and Rodemaker took a lot of sacks last year)
- Improve from 6.47 ypp to at most 5.34 ypp ... 17.5% improvement
- 5.18 ypp which was a 20% improvement - HUGE IMPROVEMENT
- Improve from 456.3 ypg to at most 387.5 ypg ... 15% improvement
- 377.2 ypg which was a 17.3% improvement - HUGE IMPROVEMENT
- Improve from 36.0 ppg to 26.0 ppg ... 10 ppg improvement
- 26.5 ppg which was an improvement by 9.5 ppg - HUGE IMPROVEMENT
- Improve in Rushing Defense from 5.12 ypp to at most 3.84 ypp
- 3.62 ypp which was a 29.3% improvement - HUGE IMPROVEMENT by 1.5 ypp
- Improve in sack totals from 1.11 sacks per game to at least 2.33 sacks per game
- 2.75 sacks per game which was a 148% improvement - HUGE IMPROVEMENT
We have to improve on defense to get to where we want to go, but improvement on offense is even more important. We were simply abysmal in games where Milton was the starter and struggled mightily on offense in games where our OL went up against solid DLs (after ND) such as Clemson, NCSU and UF.
We must improve on the OL if we want to take the next step towards getting back to respectability. If we want to get to NCSU and Wake level ... being ranked and being an 8 or 9 win team ... then the next step is to get a good OL.
OL is the foundation upon which all else is built.
But with that said, we must improve most in these areas:
- OL must be better ... especially the OTs
- QB must be better in the passing game
- LBs must continue improvement ... have to be strong in the middle of the defense (DeLoach showed excellent development; need same from MLB)
- Must shore up DTs ... need Briggs to return strong and for Ray and Jackson to continue to improve ... hopefully Lovett returns
- Have to have improvement at WR ... McClain has nice future, Douglas is a nice player at slot, must have two more WRs emerge to take next step
- McLendon can replace Thomas at FOX, but need to have Fuller and/or Cushine take next step at DE and get a transfer here as well
