re: Rationale Bama fans: how many starters do you bring back?

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The dude just lit up Michigan State and Clemson in the playoffs. I would pump the brakes on an upgrade with a fresh

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Guy, what the hell man? It took Coker 5 seasons and a REALLY rough first half of last season to even be serviceable. He finished strong and Alabama murdered teams on offense.

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Bama's had an incredible run of RB's from Ingram/Coffee-Ingram/Richardson-Richardson/Yeldon-Yeldon/Henry-Henry killing people. Damien Harris looked bad, I mean really bad. Better hope Bo can hold up.

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He got hurt. It's not like this is his 7th non contact knee surgery. shite.

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Henry is your biggest loss. You're taking for granted the automatic conversions on 3rd and 4/less.

Bama has Saban and Saban is gonna win 10 games at a min. But I just don't see the offense getting better this year. The front 7 is going to take a dip, but your secondary could be great if they don't miss Mel Tucker too much.

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Next year is going to be tough on you. You seem like a solid poster and you're WAY more informed than 90% of the other LSU fans...but damn...it's gonna be tough.

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The dude just lit up Michigan State and Clemson in the playoffs. I would pump the brakes on an upgrade with a freshman.

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I'm probably in the minority of my fanbase, but I agree...while he could be an upgrade, there'll be a learning curve so I'm in wait and see mode...and, while Barnett might be our starter next year, I still think it could be Bateman...

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Bama's had an incredible run of RB's from Ingram/Coffee-Ingram/Richardson-Richardson/Yeldon-Yeldon/Henry-Henry killing people. Damien Harris looked bad, I mean really bad. Better hope Bo can hold up.

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While I don't necessarily agree with you 'bout Harris, this will be the first time in the Saban era where we don't have a plug-n-play RB ready to go, at least experience-wise. Think it'll be Bo but not givin' up on Harris...most of his carries came in garbage time, when we had our second and third team OL in and were still primarily goin' against the other team's ones. He might not pan out but I'll wait and see how he does with our ones. Agree that we'll definitely miss Henry...

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But I just don't see the offense getting better this year. The front 7 is going to take a dip, but your secondary could be great if they don't miss Mel Tucker too much.

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While our offense might possibly be better, if our QB/RB replacements pan out, that's a big if...so I pretty much agree. Our front 7 should be really good again, but we won't have the depth we had this year. I think our secondary could be better...Tucker made a big improvement from last year and I think Pruitt will build on that since that's his specialty...

Think what we'll miss the most is leadership. Guys like Robinson, Reed, Allen, Coker, Ragland, Henry, Kelly, and probably Cyrus Jones as well. Those guys had a lot of discipline and our team was pretty much self policed this past year...and we lose all of 'em with the exception of Allen (and we're lucky to have him back).

I was surprised (pleasantly) that we won the SEC and made the playoffs the past 2 years after the attrition each year, so I'm hoping to be surprised again next season...I think we'll be in contention, just not gonna take it for granted that it'll be a slam dunk...