(12-08-2016 11:45 AM)Racinejake Wrote:  

(12-08-2016 11:41 AM)Marcus Wrote:  

(12-08-2016 11:33 AM)Racinejake Wrote:  

(12-08-2016 11:20 AM)Marcus Wrote:  It's a rebuilding job for sure IMO. The roster is not very good, especially in some critical spots where it is downright dreadful.

I don't feel nearly as good about 8 wins next year as some others do.

Play hard, play with emotion, start to make some inroads in the state and SW Ohio again with quality 3* type guys and build from there.

I feel like the difference between UC and a good majority of the American wasn't talent, it was coaching. If I look at the schedule we should be 3-1 in the non-conference (wins over Austin Peay, Miami and Marshall).

Then in conference we have ECU, Navy, USF and Tulane on the road. We should be 2-2 against those teams (wins @ ECU and Tulane). I still won't count out USF given the coaching turnover but they are likely to get a coach as good or better than we will. Then home games against UCF, UConn, SMU and Temple. Again, we should get 3 wins here with competent coaching. UCF didn't wow me and Temple will have a new coach, QB and RB. UConn is a mess and SMU is improving but should be a win if we have our stuff together.

Even when we were getting beaten by the teams in our conference I wasn't seeing huge talent gaps. Houston has it, Navy with their coaching and system are above us. I was impressed with some of Memphis' skill position guys. But beyond that we just got outcoached/outschemed/outexecuted by most teams we played.

That's probably true. There is no doubt coaching was the biggest difference between UC and the rest of the AAC this year. And it's true it can make your talent look worse than it really is. My biggest concern from a talent standpoint is the OL. The recruiting there the last 3-4 years has been absolutely brutal.

+1. I'm hopeful the change in the offensive scheme will help cover up some of our OL woes. We just can't line up and run it up the middle or drop back and pass. We just don't have the horses in the trenches unfortunately to run a pro style offense. Need to look at one or two JC guys in this class up front.

i am somewhat concerned about the upcoming recruiting cycle. i believe we had two recruits reopen their recruitment from a class that is pretty small. We are going to have to scramble for this class.