With Fall Camp just days away, here are the SMU storylines:
What will the new offense look like with Dykes' Air Raid and Lashle's Power Spread?
Will QB Hicks continue his upward trajectory?
Can the offense compensate for the loss of Sutton and Quinn to NFL with stacked RBs?
Will the defense under Kane improve significantly with Transfers and JUCOs?
And most pressing, can the team survive it's difficult first half of the season, North Texas away, TCU, Michigan away, Navy, UCF away and Houston Baptist, likely underdogs to all but HBU? (Best scenario is 4-2, Worst 1-5).

What's the story in your neck of the woods?

Tulsa's camp starts tomorrow (Friday). The biggest storyline is how much improvement will there be at the QB position. Along with whether or not the receivers took a good step forward.

On defense the DL is the biggest weak spot. That needs to improve in run stopping. We also have a handful of defensive players coming back from injury as well as a handful of JUCOs coming in.

Also of note...we have to replace All-time career points leader Redford Jones, our place kicker. This will be important. There's 2 to 4 guys vying for that spot.

Houston Storylines:

-The Final ride of Ed Oliver- how dominant- might win heisman - will play offense - draft stuff
-D'Eriq King- The next Greg Ward?- almost identical story to ward..will they have a similar junior year (13-0 as a starter as junior)
-Briles Jr. - New OC Has never had a bad offense EVER/ houston had a bad offense last season ---- stuff about his dad
-Infinite amount of Former elite transfers, How will they look-- each have a unique storylines
-Secondary was the weakest part of houston defense last year, but will be the most experienced this coming season. how much better will they be

a few others but these are the main ones

Houston is a sleeper team this year but when we beat Arizona and stomp lowly tech people will start to wake up
The game Iam waiting for is “ fricken Memphis “

UCONN story line: Block C or Curly C

Clearly the main story line this year in Greenville is all about Scotty and whether he can show drastic improvement or even make good on his bowl promise. That will hinge on a couple other things:

How much will the new defensive coordinator (David Blackwell, who had a stout defense at Jacksonville State the FCS level) help?

Which young QB will emerge to lead the offense?

UConn storylines

This is really edsal's first year now that he has his own players mixed in.


1.Can David Pindell bring stability to the quarterback position?
2.Who will get reps at running back?
3.Heavy competition on inexperienced defense
4.How will freshmen factor into UConn’s plans?
5. Diaco players vs. Edsall players

link

(08-05-2018 10:26 PM)Huskypride Wrote:  UConn storylines

This is really edsal's first year now that he has his own players mixed in.


1.Can David Pindell bring stability to the quarterback position?
2.Who will get reps at running back?
3.Heavy competition on inexperienced defense
4.How will freshmen factor into UConn’s plans?
5. Diaco players vs. Edsall players

link

Now that's some civil conflict if I've ever seen it.

Here's the writeup from the Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/spor...b7e32d4f2a

and the Annapolis Capital:
http://www.capitalgazette.com/sports/nav...story.html

You can find post-practice videotaped interviews with Niumat and Jasper and Perhson on youtube, but Wags pretty much got the good stuff in the story.

Storylines:
- Malcolm Perry
- What to do with Perry and Abey and Lewis (the best passer of the 3) all on the field at once
- Defense has some replacement to do...what else is new?
- 26,496 miles of travel this year.

For UCF, almost all the questions fall on the defense:

-While they did lag down the stretch, the defense from last year was overall above average.

-How does the defense do transitioning from a base 3-4 to 4-3? Some of our LB's have moved down to DE, and the DE's have shifted inside. DT's have lost some weight to transition from typical NT's into true 4-3 DT's.

-Does the Secondary take that next step? Lot's of big plays allowed on blown coverages, will that still happen under a Randy Shannon defense?

-Can we fill the void left by Shaquem Griffin? He was a disruptor that lived behind the line of scrimmage, but more importantly he was the heart and soul of the team. Could anyone replace that?


For Offense...
-While similar, there are still differences between Huepel's offense and Frost's. McKenzie Milton has shown an aptitude for the deep ball, and that appears to be more of a focal point under Huepel.

-Will Huepel utilize the personnel he's been gifted, effectively? At Missouri, he almost always ran a 3 WR / 1 TE / 1 RB set. If he does that, he may misuse existing talent at RB with Adrian Killins, Otis Anderson, and the returning traditional backs. Word is that AK and Otis are officially listed at WR and will operate out of the slot and the backfield, so that is promising.

-Lots of talent at O-Line. Will the new faces gel in game scenario?

-Dredrick Snelson replaces the production of Tre'quan Smith, but who steps in at #2? WR is probably the deepest position on the team, so it will be interesting to see who can carve a name for themselves.

(08-06-2018 10:12 AM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  Here's the writeup from the Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/spor...b7e32d4f2a

and the Annapolis Capital:
http://www.capitalgazette.com/sports/nav...story.html

You can find post-practice videotaped interviews with Niumat and Jasper and Perhson on youtube, but Wags pretty much got the good stuff in the story.

Storylines:
- Malcolm Perry
- What to do with Perry and Abey and Lewis (the best passer of the 3) all on the field at once
- Defense has some replacement to do...what else is new?
- 26,496 miles of travel this year.

You're the US Navy and you're complaining about distance traveled? If we wanted to hear that we would have invited the Coast Guard.

I would say Tulsa has quite a bit to look at this offseason

On Offense:
Will someone who can pass reliably trot on the field for the first series or are we going to keep a guy like President () out there throwing ducks?
Who is going to be that #4 outside receiver for us next to Justin Hobbs, slot - Keenan Johnson, and slot - Keylon Stokes. And can those 4 guys create enough space with their routes to improve our passing game?
Can our RB corps and OL stay healthy? They should be strengths for us again this season.

On Defense:
Who is going to step up on the DL? That goes for both DT and DE's.
At LB we will have competition at one of the OLB spots and we're hearing that there's a beast of a RS Freshman pushing our starting Mike LB for the top spot.
In the secondary, we had so many injuries last season that a bunch of guys were forced into playtime. We should have a ton of battles for both safety spots and the #3 and #4 CB spots.