I am having trouble reconciling my disappointment since we are exactly where I thought we would be record wise. I thought 6-6 given our schedule, and now I hope 6-6 given our remaining schedule. I think my disappointment stems from the fact that we have not been competitive in several of the expected losses, and have frittered away chances to steal one along the way. Also, I am really disappointed that we cannot run the ball, I talked myself into thinking that our OL would be more influenced by experience than by youth. Obviously, losing our two best players on offense, and our best player on defense has an impact, but my biggest issue is that we are not improving at any position except LB (IMHO). I don't recall the last time I stopped watching a UT game before the end, but I did last night.
I think that we have improved at WR, at least Arnett has and Dallas has improved his routes lately. Randolph has really improved, as has Lanier in the secondary. The rest, including Wagner at safety (not at CB) have regressed IMO. Our LB group has improved, though AJ got caught out of position a few times last night.
I think our LBs have a chance to be special next year with AJ moving to the middle and Lathers playing Will. Maggitt is legit at Sam. The secondary has a chance to be good but I'm not holding my breath and we need a lot more bodies than have committed on the DL.
With Arnett's improvement and, if Hunter recovers fully, we will have three go to receivers next year for Bray with an improving Dallas to back them up. If we get Patterson we will have a group of receivers worthy of WR U. TE is looking good as well. We need a top knotch RB, though I think Lane would be a step up from Poole for sure. The OL needs to improve as there are far too many individual breakdowns for the unit to succeed.