re: Eason already looks like the starter IMO

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While there is a good amount of talent on this team, a lot of it is young and unproven, and we do have some key spots that arent as talented or as deep as they need to be. Combine that with a tough start to the season, and it could lead to some irrational fans saying stupid things.

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Definitely this.

Interesting quote from Smart related this following the G-day game actually:

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"A lot of the guys with the ones, I think, get out in the game and get comfortable, and we've got a theme around here, there will be no comfortable," Smart said. "I think that's a disappointment. We've got to show improvement. We've got good enough players on defense to be successful, but we've got to have total buy-in to do exactly what they've got to do and execute, and we didn't get that (Saturday). Not in my opinion."

LINK

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My personal thoughts are this. This year is less important than the long term. If everything else is equal in the QB competition, start Eason. That's a big if though... you don't want to put a freshman QB out there to be a human target if he struggles at picking up blitzes and recognizing defenses. That's a quick way to ruin his confidence and/or his career. With the offensive line being a bit of a work in progress, I'd also say that plays in to how soon Eason can/should start. If he's not in "danger", I feel like this season is a perfect setup to letting him start.

The UNC game in Atlanta, is a "neutral" field that will be overrun with Dawgs. So a friendly environment to say the least (followed up with a cupcake where internally Smart could place really high bar on Eason for performance against substandard competition). Even if we were to lose that game, it doesn't really do much to our season in the grand scheme of things. I don't think many Dawg fans are proclaiming Natty for 16/17 season, so losing an out of conference game to a team that went to their conference championship last year doesn't really hinder the program in their goals, for this year or for going forward, and that's assuming that we lose the game solely due to starting a freshman which is unlikely. I'm starting to think that I'd rather see him start and a more conservative gameplan used than seeing more of Lambert. Ramsey actually looked pretty good at G-day but I just don't think he's winning the spot.

This is not to say that we can't contend for the east this year, but simply that it isn't the be-all/end-all. I see us right at about 9 wins regular season +/- 1 game. It's not impossible to do better than that, but any *worse* than 8 wins would be an unmitigated disaster of a season. 8 Wins would still be disappointing IMO, though not all 8 win seasons are created equal. If we lose 4 games to the best 4 teams we play and they're all hotly contested matchups where we appear prepared but get outplayed, fine. I'm not happy, but I can live with that. You give me 4 losses where we look sluggish, competition plays poorly and we play down to that level, I'll be pissed, and everyone else should be as well.

I mean the dangerous games on the schedule are:
UNC, Ole Miss, UT, and UF

Followed by probably Auburn (this seems like a year where they surprise on top of zero expectations) and Tech (1st time facing that shitshow offense is almost never pretty)

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect wins out of the latter 2 there, and then win at a minimum 1 of the other 4. If you win UT and UF, you would have to royally eff up to lose the East, so just don't see how anything other than getting Eason max playing time is "helping us to win games". Win the *right* games and you end up in Atlanta. To me, that means starting Eason early. First road test at a pretty pitiful looking Mizzou team. You build up your defense with the idea that they've got to *protect* the team in an early road start for the freshman QB. Follow that up with Ole Miss which most would predict as a loss, and it's a west opponent, so it's a chance to go in with low pressure IMO and try to steal a win. Once you've done that, the schedule hits the meat, but he has 4 starts, 2 on the road and he's probably playing a little less like a freshman. Stafford was playing pretty well by about 5-6 games in and that was with a lot of flip-flopping mid season.

I think ultimately, there is a distinct difference between being "ok" with an 8 win season, and "expecting" an 8 win season. My expectations based on the schedule we play and the talent we have is that we shouldn't be worse than last year. We just didn't lose that much in the way of production. OLB is really the only position I feel like you can point to and say you lost elite talent, and even that might be stretching their actual impact on the field. Floyd was inconsistent and JJ was dependable but I feel like his performance could be replaced or approximated with who we have on the roster. The real loss there is the 30% of plays where Floyd is an absolute monster. But 70% of the time, he was failing to set the edge on rushing plays and/or playing largely undisciplined football. I loved the kid's potential, but it never felt like he lived up to it following a strong first season. Hope he has a hell of a career in the pros (somewhere other than Atlanta).