Let's look at 2016 on a position by position basis. We'll start with the offense:

OL - Three starters are lost, McQueen, Lucas, and Powell. A lot of others, however gain a year of size and experience. How good the offensive line is will depend largely on the ability of those behind them to step up and assume the starting mantle. I have no doubts that Pruehs, who started in 2014 at RG, will be an excellent starting Center. The starters at the other two positions, however, are unclear to me. Nevertheless, there are are lot of players to choose from, including McCray, Lowery, Gibbons, Anderson, Cooper, Pleasants, and others. From this group I think they will find some people able to play the positions. On the whole the right side of the line, which returns everyone, will be better, while the left side will likely be a bit worse. On the whole I think the offensive line will be about the same.
TE - Gone is Heitzman, but Mangen returns, while all other player return a year older, stronger, and more experience. TE should be stronger in 2016.
WR - Brunis and Walker left the program, but there are some exciting new players in the program, and all the starters return. WR should be improved in 2016.
RB - Everyone but Daz is back, and with another year of experience, they should all be better. RB should be improved in 2016.
QB - Vick is gone, but he was hurt much of the year last year anyway, and Sprague and Windham return, plus several younger players will vie for playing time, including Krizancic, Maxwell, and Duckworth. Various "inside" reports have told us that Krizancic will be the starter, or that he will move to safety, and that Maxwell is the next Big Ben, or not. I have no idea, really, what to expect, but overall I'm not particularly worried. If the offensive line is solid, the rushing attack should take a lot of pressure off the QB, so whoever emerges at QB should be no worse than the tag-team we saw in 2015. I'll call QB a push, therefore.

Overall Offense - I expect the line and QB to be about the same, and all the other positions to be stronger. I look, therefore, for the offense to be moderately better in 2016 than 2015. I am thinking they will average about 29-30 points a game, up from 27.4 last year, but not quite up to the 30.5 in 2011. If the left side of the line develops strongly, and a clear starter emerges at QB, there is some room for upside.

Now the defense:
DL - All the Defensive ends return, and they should all be a year bigger, stronger, faster, and more experienced. At DT Tautuiaki is gone, along with Purdum, but 5th year transfer Strobel should offset that. Meanwhile Sayles, Aloese, and Porter all return, while players like Kuhar, Arp, and McKnight will vie for time. Make no mistake - I believe this will be the best defensive line under Solich, even topping the 2010 team (Notestine-Williamson-Hodge-Scott plus C. Meyers-C.Jones-Huynh-Gatling).
LB - Gone is Jovon Johnson, who was great, but he wasn't able to play much of last year. Therefore the players that actually played most of the season will all be back. They need to find some depth behind Moore, Poling, and Brown, but I believe they will. If they stay healthy, this will be a very, very good group of linebackers.
DB - Here there are many holes to fill. At CB they lose Wells, Layton, Bass, Brunson and Terpin. At Safety they lose Carpenter (no 7th season), Jones, Macer, and Scipio. With 9 guys that played gone, what is left? At corner, we can pencil Langston Provitt in at one Corner, and at Safety Toran Davis, Quallen, and Kylan Nelson return. Players need to emerge from one of four places:
1. Those redshirted last year: Maxwell Howell, Javon Hagan, and Mayne Williams
2. Those on the scout team last year: Jalen Fox
3. Walkons: Bo Hardy (speedy former RB), Grant Cunningham, Seth Meyers, Julian Brently, Brad Ellis, Daniel A'Hara
4. Incoming transfers/JUCOs: Kevin Houchins (Lousiville), London Miller (JUCO)
5. Incoming Freshmen: Xavier Motley, Illyas Motley, Tyler Tupa
Since there are so many unknowns, DB is the scariest position on the team for me. Safety doesn't concern me too much, as I can see a lineup of Nelson-Quallen-Davis-Hagen-M.Williams as being excellent, and a guy like Hardy has the speed where he could surprise us. At Corner I'll pencil in Provitt-Miller-Houchins-Fox/Howell and hope for the best. On the whole, DB will be worse than last year.

Overall Defense - While DB is a little scary, particularly at corner, the front seven will be knock-your-socks-off good. I expect the overall defense will be the best defense under Solich.

Special teams - Gone are the place kicker, and the holder/punter. The long snapper, Hale, returns. Heir apparently at punter is Farakas, and at place kicker we appear set for a battle between Zervos and Aiden O'Neill. I have no idea how these will compare, so I'll call it a wash.

Overall - With a solid offense, and a defense with an outstanding front seven, I expect this to be a very good team, and I have projected it to be the best team yet under Solich at Ohio. If the left side of the offensive line doesn't come together, or if they can't find competent cornerbacks, I could be disappointed, but really like what I see when I look ahead to this fall. If a few positions turn out above my expectations (left side of the offensive line, QB, cornerback), there is also room for an upside surprise.

Unbelievable.

It's not even March yet, and Bcat2 is already prepping Bobcat fans for a possible letdown this fall. And, at the same time, giving credit to the opposition as a way to deflect any criticism of Solich.

Unbelievable.

Ohio fans can never see a situation to respect the opponent, just the next chance to disrespect their players/coaches. Oh, 8-5 would probably be a let down to the players and staff, but, 8-5 is an above average year in most places. NIU played for the MACC and finished 8-5.

Thanks LC.
In reading your specifics, I'm having trouble following your logic. Overall, you expect the offense to be slightly improved, but you admit the OL is a question mark, and so is QB. With those two big questions, I'm hard pressed to rate the offense any better than last year. Do they actually go backwards having given up some OL talent?

On defense, your secondary concerns are also troubling. Even if we manage to field an outstanding DL, a great pocket passer could eat up an inexperienced secondary, and it sounds like that's the best description of our DBs, inexperienced.

There seems to be an intangible factor that's giving you confidence. It doesn't really appear in your position analysis. What's the missing link?

Your questions are very fair. I'll start with your questions on offense, and of those two, I'll answer the easier of the two first. Let's start, then with the QB position. On paper I agree that the QB position was stronger last year than this year, however in practice neither Vick nor Sprague were completely healthy most of the time last year. Unless the injury situation is bad again at QB I think that the actual results from the quarterbacks will be as good or better in 2016 than in 2015.

Next let's look a little deeper at the OL position. Last year they needed to replace only one lineman, that being Pruehs, who moved from being the starting RG to being the backup center. Nevertheless, they were coming from a not very good offensive line in 2014. The line was significantly better in 2015 than it was in 2014, and significantly better at the end of the season than at the beginning.

When it comes to the offensive line, I'm hanging my hat on two things. The first is the steady progress that we've seen the offensive line make under Johnson. If we assume that the backups are also making progress, the backups that we see stepping into starting positions will be better than the backups we saw step in in 2014, and by a considerable degree. The second thing I'm hanging my hat on is the large number of upperclassmen among the backups. At offensive line you need ability, of course, but age and physical maturity help a lot, too. The possible people who could step into starting positions at LT and LG are:
Jared McCray - Jr, 3rd year in the system, has played well, and even started a couple games, but has had some injury issues
Joe Lowery - R. Soph, 3rd year in system, played a lot in 2014, including a start
Joshua Cooper - R. Sr, JUCO transfer last year, started a couple games
Nick Gibbons - R. Sr. 5th year in system, has started at times
Joe Anderson - R. Jr, JUCO transfer last year
Zack Murdock - R. Jr, 4th year in system, has never played
Dudziak and Langenkamp - R. Sophomores, 3rd year in the system
Pleasants, Grimes, Ready - R. Freshmen, 2d year in the system
Notestine and Beadle - True Freshmen on campus now
Noel, Trotter, and Fernandez - True Freshmen arriving in the fall

My guess is that McCray and Lowery will man the LT spot, and that Cooper and Anderson will man the LG spot. All four have played those positions at times, and most have started games. Note that if the left side of the line is a little worse than last year, but the right side is better, the line as a whole could be about the same. Furthermore, if, as I expect, the offensive line continues to make progress as the season progresses at the rate they did last year, by the end of the year the offensive line could be very good.

As I said above, there seems to be a lot of talent there, even if it isn't that experienced. First let's look in depth at Safety:
Toran Davis - R-Sr, has started a lot of games. He needs to be the anchor
Kylan Nelson - R-So, played in a lot of games in 2014, and a few in 2015 before being injured (groin)
Corey Quallen - R-Jr, played in 3 games in 2014 before suffering a turf toe, and then had another injury last year
Javon Hagen - R-Fr, was the top recruit in 2015, highly touted Safety from Florida
Mayne Williams - R-Fr, another top recruit from 2015, from Colerain
Bo Hardy - R-Sr, probably the fastest man on the team, moved at his request from running back, has played a lot of special teams
Seth Meyers - walkon from Fork Union
Tyler Tupa - highly touted Freshman this fall
Grant Cunningham - R.Jr walkon has played a lot, mostly special teams
Kevin Houchins - R.Sr, 5th year transfer from Louisville

There definitely appear to be enough players here to man the safety spot. Safety is not a concern.

Cornerback is the spot of concern. The new CB coach will definitely earn his pay this year. Nelson and Houchins, listed above as Safeties, have also played CB before, and could play some this year, most likely as a nickle back. Other than that, the available corners are:
Lanston Provitt - So, played well last year as a true Freshman
London Miller - R-Jr, JUCO transfer
Maxwell Howell - R-Fr, Originally rated as a 4-star recruit, he was lowered to a low 2-star rating when he chose Ohio over other offers. (which was correct? We'll see.)
Jalen Fox - R-So
Xavior and Illyaas Motley - Will be true freshmen this fall
Daniel A'Hara, Julian Brently, and Brad Ellis are walkons.

My guess is that the starters will be Provitt and Miller, and that Howell and one or both of the Motley brothers will play. I don't find that overly concerning, however. CB is a position where talent is more important than experience, and where true freshmen often play. We've seen lots of true freshmen come in and play well:
2005 - Mark Parson
2007 - Julian Posey and Shannon Ballard
2008 - Travis Carrie and Kenny Jackson
2011 - Lorenzo Fisher, Ian Wells, and Devin Bass
2012 - Blake Scipio
2014 - Kylan Nelson
2015 - Langston Provitt

Does that mean I'm not worried a little about corner? Nope. In the end, I end up where Colorado is. The coaches have a better idea of what they have, and what they need that we do, as fans. They did recruit two Freshmen and a JUCO, plus a 5th year transfer, so they obviously have some concern. Yet, they could have taken 2-3 Juco corners, and did not, so I hope that they are right that what they recruited will fill the need.

The same logic applies, only more so at quarterback. They could have recruited a JUCO, or a Freshman, but chose to be very, very selective, only offering top 3-star QBs. It was high 3-star or nothing, and while they ended up with nothing, they seemed to be comfortable with that. Therefore, I'm not going to worry about QB at all, for either 2016 or 2017

Again, thanks LC. Certainly the OL played better at the end of last season than the beginning. Hard to assess the total difference the loss of seniors will make, and what impact the new guys deliver. Also hard to measure how much the OL's success is due to the coach versus the individual motivation and talent.

Having said that, I appreciate your crack at it. In the end, your optimism has some basis in faith in the system.

Surgery? First I've heard that. What was it and what's the long term prognosis?

Not me. I'm calling for Ohio to win the East.

Bigger and stronger doesn't make players faster and in fact bigger, stronger can usually mean slower. I mean I ran track in high school, ran marathons after high school and played football at Ohio and I do not see any correlation to bigger making someone faster, in track its usually the opposite.

Against our weaka*# schedule, that should mean at most two losses, one in conf and one out of conf, plus a MACC.

Look at who we play. Your analysis of the team and respect for Solich and the schedule--there can be no other conclusion.

As a counterpoint, here I think is a more realistic view of 2016...

Offense

- For the third year in a row we do not return a "top half of the MAC" quarterback. If the offense does perform well, it will be done in spite of this important fact.

- The offensive line loses some good players, but lets assume it holds up and performs about as well as 2015....

- We have a decent stable of running backs, most of whom are unproven. Irons has the potential to be an all-MAC talent, while I think AJ is the more reliable choice with less upside.

- Papi White must stay healthy in order for us to have anything beyond an entirely pedestrian offense.

- Our WR group is fairly reliable, but lacks a big play guy. Smith is the best of the group and provides a big and reliable target for quick slants and outs.

Defense

- CB is a serious problem. The Wells effect...which was difficult for the casual fan to notice...will be fully apparent.

- Safety will need to see Toran Davis settle into the top spot and the RS Freshman will need to live up to the hype.

- LB depends on Poling/Brown/Moore health. Particularly the first two. If they stay healthy it will be a good group.


Bottom line: This team should be about as good as 2015 unless some newcomers or Papi White change things dramatically. If they make it to a MACC, it will be primarily because BG is in a rebuilding cycle and the rest of the division is not very strong. The team to beat in the MAC is WMU and frankly we are a long way off.

Paul, that's a fair analysis. I think there is actually a fairly fine line between yours and mine. I agree with bcat2 that you should have mentioned the defensive line, but also I have no idea if cb will be ok (as I hope), or will be a problem (as you fear). The players at corner this fall will be all new faces except Provitt.