I think you are right. We have a lot of people coming back and a weak schedule next year. I don’t agree that talent was the problems with Butch and Company though. I just don’t think they were good coaches. With kids coming back in year two of Pruitt’s system, with SC, Vandy and Mississippi St. at home and no Oregons, Oklahoma or West Virginia type out of conference games, I think we very possibly could win 8 or more games. Mississippi St. lost something like 8 seniors. We very easily could take both Missouri without Lock and Kentucky without a handful of people. We can’t drop a game we shouldn’t win such as BYU or USB, but we have those at home. The only games we should lose next year are Bama, Georgia and Florida.
Losing Tuttle and Johnson IS going to hurt early though. I do think the guys behind them can fill their shoes, but it’s the lack of depth that concerns me there and learning yet another offense. My hope is that won’t hurt us as much as recent years because of how light the first quarter of our schedule is next year, so we will have some growing room without too any losses. Florida will just before our open date is perfect as we will then get a week off to fix mistakes and take on Georgianat home. Who knows what happens there? Will they be any better next year than they were last year? Fromm has yet to play in Neumann’s. It could get interesting there. I am chalking that up as a loss with everyone else, but who knows?
But while we are talking about what bodes well for us next year and what doesn’t, Let’s not negate that this is our 5th OC in 6 years: Bajakian, Debord, Scott, Helton and Scott. It doesn’t completely negate the fact that we return so much of our offense, but it definitely doesn’t help continuity.
