First of all I want to make it perfectly clear I'm not saying we're making the playoffs this year, or winning the SEC, or even making any prediction of any kind.

With that said, I see a lot of folks point to 2018 as "the year" for us to really break out, primarily based on the fact Eason will be a junior and our young but talented OL should be extremely good. Those are important, but it's pretty scary thinking about how much we lose on defense after this year. I trust kirby on that side of the ball but it's hard to count on major things when the majority of your defense is going to be young and/or inexperienced. So..why shouldn't we expect big things this year?

QB- You can look at decades worth of data and see that talented quarterbacks typically make a solid jump from their freshman to sophomore seasons, it's only natural. Eason has unlimited talent he just needs the game to keep slowing down, so it's reasonable to expect him to have a very good to maybe even great season next year.
RB- chubb and sony, elite.
TE- elite potential
WR- this is an issue. The good thing is that with WR it's relatively "easy" for young guys to excel. Ridley Wims and Godwin seem capable of being very good receivers. The fact we brough in three 4* receivers in this class can only be a good thing.
OL- this is one of the biggest question marks. Wynn is rock solid and Gaillard seems perfectly capable of being a good C, no worse than what we had last year anyway. I'm not worried about guard since cleveland/kinley/sims/johnson/shaffer all look to be ready to roll. So that leaves tackle, which is obviously a concern. At LT we'll have a JUCO which is comforting since the guy has years of PT and was highly ranked in JUCO to boot. Will he be an AA? Probably not, but we don't need him to be either. At RT, it's impossible not to be excited about Wilson. The guy is tailor made for RT and should be starting almost immediately. While a TFr tackle is worrisome, it's comforting knowing that at least that's what he was born to do, unlike last year where we played a potential All-SEC guard at tackle simply because we had to. Let's also throw in the fact Andrew Thomas is one of the more highly ranked pure OTs we've signed in a while and provides quality depth at either slot.

Which brings us to the really exciting part, the defense.

DL- We return pretty much everyone. Trent was a former #1 overall player and will be a junior and should be outstanding. Atkins is a senior and can be counted on. All those young bucks that got their feet wet last year (Rochester, Hawkins, Ledbetter, Marshall, Clark) are all another year familiar with the system and more comfortable. We may not have any bama-caliber All Americans but the line should be an imporvement over last year.

LB- Maybe the best overall group we've had in a while. Bellamy and Carter outside, Roquan and Natrez inside make a very formidable starting group. REggie CArter is a vereran and Deandre Walker came on strong last year. We also signed 4 or 5 guys that are highly talented that should give plenty of good depth as well. LBers shoudl be a force.

CB- Deandre Baker and Malkom Parrish resume their starting roles. Not sure what to think about Mecole but he definitely isn't hurting for talent. Also signed a few guys that could step in early. This might not be our strongest unit but it doesn't appear to be a weak spot either.

S- Dom Sanders and Aaron Davis are back again, and Gibbs and Lecounte should be counted on to play heavily. No concerns from me at safety.

Schedule- One of the easiest (team wise) we could hope for, although it stinks many of our tough ones are on the road. We trade out @OM for MSU at home from the west. With app state, Samford, MSU, vandy, missouri, SC, UK, and GT we should be looking at 8 PROBABLE wins right off the bat. That leaves @ND, @UT, @UF, @AU as the 4 big ones. Notre dame lost their stud QB and seems to be in free fall, so this game is very winnable. @UT is always a concern, but they lost the main reason they've won the last 2 games and they frankly aren't even that good anyway. UF is a game we haven't done well in the last 3 seasons, but we are trending up/better while they seem to be stagnating. Can't really say we're going to beat them until we do again, but it's not like it's an impossible hill to climb. Then we have AU, who with stidham and pettway should be extremely tough and it's on the road. Will certainly be a battle.

In 2018 our offense should be excellent assuming we find a RB (not worried about that) but we just lose so much talent on defense and trade out MSU at home for @LSU.