I thought it interesting that we are ranked higher than army or Miami
my gut tells me that kwane jucos our DL line could the best we've seen at emu I think our defense will surprise on the other hand our ok is a basket case which roback will show up and who does he throw to although I really like Tuttle browning and Daugherty but is that enough?
On the main MAC board the suggestion was that the Orlando writer(s) must be buying that our defense will be much improved.
As we've discussed, we might not be the Leicester City of American football, but with an improved defense, healthy, veteran OL, and solid QB play from Roback that we could be much improved.
I totally buy that Roback has the talent to be one of, if not, the best QB in the MAC. We've seen flashes of it here or there. But that's the problem. It's just been 'here or there.'
Remember that 4th quarter comeback against WMU in 2013? Roback lead the offense down the field, through multiple 4th downs, to take the game to overtime and an eventual win.
I'd be ecstatic if he comes out and proves his worth this season.
(This post was last modified: 05-03-2016 04:45 PM by FrankAnderson.)
I think they're more or less buying into our schedule. If show some signs of improvement defensively, we could very easily be 3-1 going into conference play.
I'm still in the "I'll believe it when I see it" phase, but we really couldn't ask for a better OOC schedule.
(05-03-2016 05:45 PM)EagleTough Wrote: Not buying Roback at all until he proves it in the first 4 games, with consistency and the elimination of stupid turnovers.
The OLine performance in Spring game is a big concern, regardless of 'experience.'
Loss of the 2 receivers a problem unless we get an immediate Juco stud starting receiver.
Defense will be improved, no doubt.
Yes, and easy OOC schedule is nice and gives us our 'best chance' of winning, but this team still has a long ways to go to become a solid MAC team.
We need to be careful to avoid so-called 'blue sky' type speculative expectations (typically used with stocks or investments where the 'sky is the limit' but there is little basis for that expectation other than hope): "speculative schemes which have no more basis than so many feet of 'blue sky.'"
We can contrast that with most of our other sports which have demonstrated success. So saying our MBB and WBB are expected to go to CLE in 2017 for the MAC tourney is reasonable based on recent history.
(This post was last modified: 05-05-2016 05:54 AM by emu steve.)
(05-19-2016 09:24 AM)emu79 Wrote: We ended up at 110. This tells me the rankers think EMU will be greatly improved in 2016 in their opinion.
But we're losing some players and adding some so it will be interesting to see how it all settles out before the August reporting date.
I still think the staff is evaluating placekickers, maybe a LB and a WR from the JUCO ranks.
IF eligible we've added some nice DL and a DB depth post signing day.
OR as was posted on the main MAC forum, some believe the schedule is the difference.
In other words, the difference between team ranked #125, 115 or 105 might be which has the most or least favorable schedule.
As has been discussed here a lot, the 2016 EMU schedule 'bakes in' a win over a weak FCS team, and has a home and and an away game with weak FBS teams.
We are more or less starting with a good chance of two OOC wins. I'm hard pressed to remember the last time we did that, EXCEPT when one of English's teams played TWO FCS teams, neither strong.
A win over MVSU and either CHARLOTTE or WYO gets us say up to #115 in the rankings.
Beat all three and we 'zoom' up to near #100.
(This post was last modified: 05-19-2016 10:26 AM by emu steve.)