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Looking ahead, just for fun.

Who do we lose from this year's team? I'm not very knowledgeable about our roster, but Google tells me that we lose the following starters:

Brooks (DL)
Ponder (DL)
Tucky (2nd string DL)
Brown (2nd string DL)
Beavers (LB)
Dublanko (LB)
White (LB)
Forrest (DB)
Wiggins (DB)
Bryant (DB)

Doaks (RB)
Bruno (TE)
Smith (P)

On defense, we lose 7 starters. But we return probably our best two players (Gardner and Sanders, assuming Sanders doesn't declare for the draft).

Our offense returns almost completely intact. Doaks & Bruno are good, but their backups are almost as good now and have more upside.

But I'd imagine that some of those seniors aren't NFL prospects and will want to exercise their COVID option for a 5th year. I'd also imagine Fickell would let any of the starters stay if they want to.

Who do you think stays? Who goes to the NFL?

Next year could be even more special than this year. Notre Dame (who we play next year) and Alabama and Ohio State will lose most of their best players to the NFL, while UC could be stacked with a bunch of 6th year seniors with 2-3 years of starting experience.

Beavers did not walk with the seniors, and it seems pretty evident that he'll be back, which is huge. Darius Harper is a senior as well, I believe. He's also the most likely to improve his stock if he comes back - crazy that the dude just started playing college football. On the DL side, we're fortunate to have a transfer who might be All-AAC on day on. So, yes, we're loaded next year.

I think there could be several that stick around regardless of whether they walked or not on senior day. They announced the free year of eligibility the week before Labor Day so I’m sure some of the seniors who contribute at a high level are still figuring out what they want to do and what their options are...same with the staff. There are budget issues as well since anyone that stays would be on top of the 85 scholarships in 2021 and those guys would also get tuition, books housing etc, too.

Our defense is going to be a VERY unknown quantity next year. Yes we return Gardner and Bush moving out to the boundary for Bryant is probably a wash, but we lose EVERY starter up the middle (2 deep of DTs, both field LBs with White and Dublanko, and both safeties who were 3-year starters). To say we're "loaded" is definitely not looking at things objectively....that's also without Sanders leaving, should he leave, we will only 4 starters (Gardner, Bush, Beavers, and Hicks) who have more than mop-up duty on their game logs so far.

Our offense on the other hand could be genuinely special so long as Hudson and Ridder return, and yes, Ridder very well could leave after this year based on his movement in draft scouting. I think we can replace one tackle relatively easily, but losing both bookends is going to be rough, especially now that we've see what Ridder can do with a pocket, and we are still unsure of if Bryant is the guy or not.

This to me seems to be very reminiscent of the 2008-2009 transition, as we're returning most of our offense, but lose essentially our entire ELITE defense, and we're going to need said offense to outscore everyone as we did then. Are we confident enough in Denbrock to be able to build an offense like that?

I see us probably losing 3 games next year (ND, UCF, and one other out there somewhere), but that's still a fine season.

(12-02-2020 12:44 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  Our defense is going to be a VERY unknown quantity next year. Yes we return Gardner and Bush moving out to the boundary for Bryant is probably a wash, but we lose EVERY starter up the middle (2 deep of DTs, both field LBs with White and Dublanko, and both safeties who were 3-year starters). To say we're "loaded" is definitely not looking at things objectively....that's also without Sanders leaving, should he leave, we will only 4 starters (Gardner, Bush, Beavers, and Hicks) who have more than mop-up duty on their game logs so far.

Our offense on the other hand could be genuinely special so long as Hudson and Ridder return. I think we can replace one tackle relatively easily, but losing both bookends is going to be rough, especially now that we've see what Ridder can do with a pocket.

This to me seems to be very reminiscent of the 2008-2009 transition, as we're returning most of our offense, but lose essentially our entire ELITE defense, and we're going to need said offense to outscore everyone as we did then. Are we confident enough in Denbrock to be able to build an offense like that?

I see us probably losing 3 games next year (ND, UCF, and one other out there somewhere), but that's still a fine season.

Regarding losing to UCF, I'm always hesitant to pick anyone to beat us at Nippert.

I wonder if there is any mutual interest in guys like Tucky, Dublanko and Curtis Brown coming back for the free year.

(12-02-2020 12:47 PM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  I wonder if there is any mutual interest in guys like Tucky, Dublanko and Curtis Brown coming back for the free year.

Do you mean Curtis Brooks or Marcus Brown? I know they're essentially the same player, but still lol

(12-02-2020 12:45 PM)bearcatmark Wrote:  

(12-02-2020 12:44 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  Our defense is going to be a VERY unknown quantity next year. Yes we return Gardner and Bush moving out to the boundary for Bryant is probably a wash, but we lose EVERY starter up the middle (2 deep of DTs, both field LBs with White and Dublanko, and both safeties who were 3-year starters). To say we're "loaded" is definitely not looking at things objectively....that's also without Sanders leaving, should he leave, we will only 4 starters (Gardner, Bush, Beavers, and Hicks) who have more than mop-up duty on their game logs so far.

Our offense on the other hand could be genuinely special so long as Hudson and Ridder return. I think we can replace one tackle relatively easily, but losing both bookends is going to be rough, especially now that we've see what Ridder can do with a pocket.

This to me seems to be very reminiscent of the 2008-2009 transition, as we're returning most of our offense, but lose essentially our entire ELITE defense, and we're going to need said offense to outscore everyone as we did then. Are we confident enough in Denbrock to be able to build an offense like that?

I see us probably losing 3 games next year (ND, UCF, and one other out there somewhere), but that's still a fine season.

Regarding losing to UCF, I'm always hesitant to pick anyone to beat us at Nippert.

I agree...but I just think they return far too much on offense, and if we end up having to outscore them, I don't think we'd have the horses to do it at this point.

I'm curious on how the "fence around Cincinnati" recruits develop. We've seen how the first few (local) classes have turned out with White, Beavers, Vann, Hicks, Smith and now Whyle hitting his stride. It's too bad Bolden got injured. I would have liked to have seen what he would have done. But, I'm curious to see which of the local guys will step up and play meaningful roles next year. I don't think we will see much of Prater barring a Ridder injury, but it will be fun to see if guys like Pace, Thomas, Jones Jr., Ingle, etc start to develop and contribute.

(12-02-2020 12:49 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  

(12-02-2020 12:47 PM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  I wonder if there is any mutual interest in guys like Tucky, Dublanko and Curtis Brown coming back for the free year.

Do you mean Curtis Brooks or Marcus Brown? I know they're essentially the same player, but still lol

Lol. Sorry. I meant Marcus Brown the Sr backup.

(12-02-2020 01:02 PM)Cat-Man Wrote:  I'm curious on how the "fence around Cincinnati" recruits develop. We've seen how the first few (local) classes have turned out with White, Beavers, Vann, Hicks, Smith and now Whyle hitting his stride. It's too bad Bolden got injured. I would have liked to have seen what he would have done. But, I'm curious to see which of the local guys will step up and play meaningful roles next year. I don't think we will see much of Prater barring a Ridder injury, but it will be fun to see if guys like Pace, Thomas, Jones Jr., Ingle, etc start to develop and contribute.

My guess is that all of those guys will be heavily relied upon next year with the significant losses and the way we rotate position groups. Add in Blake Bacevich and Eric Phillips too...even with the addition of Briggs, we're going to be pushing some untested DLmen into positions quickly.

(12-02-2020 01:02 PM)Cat-Man Wrote:  I'm curious on how the "fence around Cincinnati" recruits develop. We've seen how the first few (local) classes have turned out with White, Beavers, Vann, Hicks, Smith and now Whyle hitting his stride. It's too bad Bolden got injured. I would have liked to have seen what he would have done. But, I'm curious to see which of the local guys will step up and play meaningful roles next year. I don't think we will see much of Prater barring a Ridder injury, but it will be fun to see if guys like Pace, Thomas, Jones Jr., Ingle, etc start to develop and contribute.

I don't want to be too Nitpicky, but Beavers was not one of our local recruits. He went to UCONN and transferred to UC.

We have depth right now and strong recruiting going on. Seems like we always have guys step up when they get the chance.

Not worried at all.

(12-02-2020 01:06 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  

(12-02-2020 01:02 PM)Cat-Man Wrote:  I'm curious on how the "fence around Cincinnati" recruits develop. We've seen how the first few (local) classes have turned out with White, Beavers, Vann, Hicks, Smith and now Whyle hitting his stride. It's too bad Bolden got injured. I would have liked to have seen what he would have done. But, I'm curious to see which of the local guys will step up and play meaningful roles next year. I don't think we will see much of Prater barring a Ridder injury, but it will be fun to see if guys like Pace, Thomas, Jones Jr., Ingle, etc start to develop and contribute.

My guess is that all of those guys will be heavily relied upon next year with the significant losses and the way we rotate position groups. Add in Blake Bacevich and Eric Phillips too...even with the addition of Briggs, we're going to be pushing some untested DLmen into positions quickly.

With the injuries he had early on I totally forgot about Bacevich.

We've got a great coaching staff and a good thing going here in general, so I think we are more likely to see guys consider taking the extra year of eligibility than most programs around the country. I definitely want to see our younger players on the field next year continuing to develop, but I bet we'll have a couple seniors stick around.

I didn't even think about the possibility of Des leaving this year and Ben Bryant starting next season by default

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Has anyone done the leg work of figuring out which of our seniors are projected to be drafted in 2021? I would think guys who are projected to be undrafted may stick around. I haven't heard much about Joel Dublanko's NFL prospects, so he is one who comes to mind.

My guess is Jowon Briggs will be eligible after the Covid and returning home. I'd pencil him in for one DL spot.

Was looking at schedules yesterday. Game3 @Indiana, then bye week, Game 4 @ NotreDame. The interesting part is ND has Wisky the week before our game. We could be the letdown game.

(12-02-2020 01:24 PM)dsquare Wrote:  My guess is Jowon Briggs will be eligible after the Covid and returning home. I'd pencil him in for one DL spot.

Wonder if there's any chance Myjai comes back. If he does, Sanders/Briggs/Vann will be a great starting trio.