Can't post on the Conference Forum, so will post my thoughts here.

Should be better on both sides of the ball, and while they have a tough schedule, should have a shot at being bowl eligible.

No SBC team has a better roster to cobble a depth chart out of, and while still very young overall, many of their youngsters have already been thrown into the fire, so their youth should not be as big a problem as last year.

With a full 85 on scholarship, and some solid additions since the end of last season, Butch has enough talent in every room to more than compete against any SBC team.

Of course the key for them is where Butch Jones feels they are at as far as adopting "his" culture. While he probably has another "throw away" year to implement it, he might be inclined to help his AD- who he helped entice into joining them, this coming season.

If they had not lost OT Robert Holmes-then made things worse by trying to replace him with two players that while they represented the culture Butch wants to implement should never have seen the field last year, they probably beat Memphis and probably would have had a shot at six wins last year.

They have added some older transfers to the OL this year so hopefully those two players will not see the field this year either.

Because of their overall youth, and the uncertainty of where they are at in culture implementation, they are probably a year away from being a true contender for a SBC Championship, although they have the talent to beat any SBC team this year.

Like last year the key game is Memphis, and if they beat them their fans may not have to wait until 2024 for their "bounce-back" season.

As noted on the Conference forum CFN has A-State winning five games.

https://collegefootballnews.com/cfn/arka...eview-2023

Insert any other SBC Coach HC as the HC at A-State last year and they win five games minimum IMO .

It was a throw away year-they gave Butch an extra year after year one, focused on implementing his "culture" and not wins, something he made clear would be the case before the season started.

While this is a tougher schedule , hopefully they got enough of his "culture" implemented to spare their fans a repeat.

Nothing is really different about A-State this year. They have above average talent at the skill positions (maybe a little more depth) and it comes down to how they perform in the trenches. The last few years they have not done well on the OL or DL, but especially the OL.

While A-State took steps to address the youth issue that hurt them on the OL in 2022 by bringing some older transfers, they have not done much on the DL, an area where Butch said they needed to get tougher and more physical.

On the interior of the DL they brought in Alabama State DT Micah Bland (6-1, 327lb, GT)- who exited spring as a starter, and Harvard DT Nate Martey (6-1, 270lb, SO) . The only other upperclassmen other than Bland on the interior of the DL is former Lamar DT Treviance VJ Bronson (6-3, 292lb, JR), who had a couple of starts in his first year at A-State, and should be a solid player this year . Both Bland and Bronson are physically capable of playing inside at the FBS level, but the other interior DL's, while probably as talented as any group in their programs history, where still needing to grow up a little bit physically.

Little better at DE than at DT, where Junior Ethan Hassler (6-3, 245lb, JR), Senior Thurman Geathers (6-2, 227lb, SR) and Junior Blayne Toll (6-5, 274lb, JR) provide experience, but all the other DE's are underclassmen-again talented underclassmen.

Would not be surprised if the did not add a couple of older players on the DL before the season starts.