What will our offense look like without Keelan Doss and his 118 catches? Drawing the top defenders, defensive focus, and making many catches at crucial times.
The offensive line should improve given its youth, and emerging stud Jake Parks. Depth also at tight end.
Superlative QB Maier is back, who almost racked up 4,000 yards passing, supported by 2 productive, explosive young backs in Gilliam and Thomas. It would be great if our backup QBs got some competitive reps against 1s and 2s.
What about wide receiver? Depth for sure, but Logan Montgomery sadly lost.
Jared Harrell accounted for 896 yards, and the 3rd leading receiver was RB Gilliam with 385 yards. Kraft (275 yards), Crawford (216), and Vaughn (205) round out the top performers. Maybe Frosh Blake Thorpe and Casey Granfors emerge? The receiving crew is young.
Don't forget Lance Babb. 'Redshirt Freshman' who caught a TD v EWU in the playoff. He is supposed to be a good one. Preece is a threat at TE. Should be interesting who steps up from the redshirt crew.
Montgomery is a loss; very sad for him to end his career like that.
In 2018 Hawkins said “Our stated goal going into games this year is to throw it to him 20 times a game,”
One thing we can count on is more diversification in 2019. Every spot on offense has veteran starter returning if they don’t lose their job to talented youth. Hopefully we’ll run a little more.
'18 Moody Award Winner #2 Harrell and Preece are going to be big, Preece feels like the new jump ball man, I can see them working Preece a little like the Patriots worked Gronk, a lot of downfield 50/50 stuff.
Crawford, Livingston, Vaughn, Kraft, Babb II, TEs Skeptaris, Bearden, Hyman...and maybe some flashes from the new freshmen like Granfors, Chaz Davis and Thorpe.
I will say, with our system, the TE/WR depth, Thomas and Gilliam, young OL and with Maier back for year 3, I'm not worried as much about our offensive output.
Losing Moe, Olave, V. White, Cloud, Parenteau is going to be the biggest gap. I know CB King looks like a stud, but who's getting to the passer? We played a lot of guys last year which is great, the heavy rotation should really pay dividends in 2019...however, we have to get the returners to step it up. Looking even further ahead to 2020, we look very strong, but Jake will have graduated, so the QB situation will be red hot.
Harrell’s already a proven big play guy; he just needs to stay healthy. We have more depth at wide receiver and tight end than we did last year. It will be interesting to see who rises to the top of that bunch.
No telling who plays QB in 2020 but we’ve had a lot of good ones here and I think the current coaches can recognize and develop talent. We’ve been bringing in a couple of QBs almost every year. I think whoever wins the job will be good.