I think it is fairly apparent that the outcome of our season depends on our running game and the pass rush. I am really hopeful that our offensive line has taken it as a personal challenge to step up this year. I don't care how good our receivers are, we need to have some sort of rushing attack. This will also help our defense, which I expect to be much more aggressive this year. I think that Neal will be key this year. He has an amazing ability to catch balls out of the backfield, and it will always be a mismatch with him on the field with our receivers getting all the attention. He struggled between the tackles last year, so if he can just become semi-workable in that area it will help us greatly. I'm hopeful that Lane can become an every down back, I just don't think that he is there yet.
For our defense I expect much more aggressive schemes and play calling. Hopefully, Sunseri will not continue in the tradition of Third and Chavis/Wilcox. If our defensive pressure improves like I expect it to, this should help in third down situations. Also, I expect the defense to force more turnovers than in the past two years. Again part of this stems from increasing the pass rush, but barring injuries I really like Wagner as more of a roaming ball hawk corner than a shutdown corner which he is not. A lot of this depends on our new Juco players and the development of Mo Couch, who I expect will take a giant leap forward this year.