If Harrell and Vaughan are 100% back from their injuries, plus the other guys you mentioned it will be interesting to see who ends up playing. Got some speed with those guys,
Not to mention several prize freshmen,
Hopefully, we'll have our act more together for the first game than San Jose. They do have all their receivers back but the QB position is undecided. And they have change offensive coordinator, might take time to jell.

This year I think the first two games will be definitive. This isn't one of those years where the early games are either unwinnable or in which we are prohibitive favorites. Both should be competitive winnable games. San Jose is in year two of a new coaching tenure and year one didn't show much. This is as good an opportunity to beat a FBS team as we are likely to see.The Toreros are coming of a year with a FCS playoff win. Two pretty good games to measure against.

I think third in the Big Sky is realistic.
I think our defensive coordinator’s resume shows he has the ability to turn things around.
Defensive coordinator was new to team and league last year. I think this year he’ll have more success. We return a lot of defensive players and look like we’ll have some good additions.
On offense few teams return the passing combos we have with standout returning wide receivers and tight end. We have a good prospect at running back in Tehran, I think we’ll be a better team overall. I don’t know about the polls But I think the computer rankings will show us a top 25 FCS team.

I was contrasting an example of Nehemiah who wasn’t successful as a NFL player with an archetypical running back who also had world class speed. OJ is just one example of many where near Olympic class sprinters were also great football players.
100 meter times reflect sped and speed is a desirable gift. Not the only skill needed in football but one that players either have or don’t, hard to improve upon. For guys at speed positions there is a very strong correlation between being fast at 100 meters and being fast to 40 yards. One is slightly biased to accceleration the other slightly biased to top speed, both valuable football assets. The great thing about track times is they are accurately measured. Glad to see some good sized commits with good speed.

Yes but you need a mix. You need some speed on your team.
Its a good thing that out of the small number of commits so far that we’ve got two fast guys.
I haven’t got the impression watching our defense that we’re too small, more that we can’t contain great athletes that get the ball with a little space. Speed will help.

https://www.flotrack.org/articles/5024592-track-and-the-nfl-whos-the-fastest-ever

If you look at the list you’ll see some talented football players who had great speed. For instance I don’t think of OJ Simpson as being just fast, he was durable and hard to tackle as well. Bo Jackson was just an unreal athlete,

I’ve been assured on this forum or it’s predecessor that times for 100 meters are not meaningful in football; pay no attention to all the sprinters in the football hall of fame.
But I often check. Most fast HS football players run track at least some years, and their times are easily found on the Internet. We usually have had a few guys who run sub 11 seconds. It’s good when those guys have some size as is the case here.

I don’t think hiring Gould caused Tumeys falling out of favor. It was too early in Gould’s tenure.

Neither he nor they said he was fired, they don’t like the word.
The chancellor announced it, which kind of implies it was her decision.
They likely gave him a good reference as they waved goodbye.

Why did he leave here? I guess it wasn’t because he didn’t like the Valley.

Movie
I think we all agree we won’t be much better without defensive improvement. I’m optimistic. Look at linebacker for instance. You list five solid junior linebackers; in addition we’ve got senior Baumgart and Moe. Trimble, Terrell Sayles who once started games for us, and Logan Hungrige who was reportedly offered by all the service acadamies, coming off redshirt years. Plus sophomore Airey. Hopefully the cream will rise to the top and we’ll have four or five solid linebackers. Same with other defensive positions. You mention Perryman, a redshirt 6 ft player with 4.4 speed. Might really add something. We’ll have some new faces and holdovers will have won their jobs against competition. I’m optimistic, not that we’ll suddenly be like Weber on D, but that we’ll be much improved.

Saying San Jose state is an automatic loss is idiotic.
We have usually had competitive games with San Jose. They are a team that is up and down coming off a horrible year. Their new coaching staff hasn’t proved anything yet. FCS teams beat teams at San Jose’s level all the time.

I’m hopeful we’ll be better incrementally in all the defensive categories. Also hopeful we’ll have a running game and cut down on sacks. I think being picked to be third in the Big Sky is not unrealistic. We’ll see.

I think the teams ranking on defense, as well as what we saw in some games has to be eye opening for the coaches. I don't think they are going into this season with complacency, and surely they are looking at what needs to be changed, both in who plays and what the schemes are.. I think our defense last year was less than the sum of its parts. But we have added some new parts in the guys coming off redshirt years and some good freshmen, I think our additions exceed our losses, We'll see if we rank in the 100s next year. I expect we won't, time will tell.

I’m looking forward to hearing who rises to the top among the guys you mention and others. Gould’s last class was heavy in front seven guys, some of those guys are just sophomores. We brought in some last year and a couple of good ones this year. As others have stated just improving to middle ranking on defense would improve our record. Some have stressed turnovers but any way we can get the ball back including on downs so that we aren’t blown out before our offense breaks a sweat would be great. Looks like we might have depth If a couple of guys step up. Strength in numbers, no name defense kind of D. Lots of room to improve but the cupboard isn’t bare.

If last years teams played, we'd be projected to lose to Stanford by about 5 touchdowns, San Diego would be even, and we'd beat San Jose by a touchdown.
Doesn't answer the question for next years teams, but no better answer exists. San Jose might be better next year, who knows? But it looks to be our most likely early win.

I don’t think San Jose would be in anyone’s poll.
San Diego gets no respect,
Stanford isn’t as up and down as they used to be unfortunately.

Nowhere to go but up!
While retuning a lot of starters from a ineffective unit is a mixed blessing; at most positions our worst case scenario is as good as last year but more experienced . Also, the coaches now have more experience with the conference and team. Plus we have a lot of players we haven’t seen coming off redshirt freshmen years and new recruits. We lost some good football players on D but their replacements are likely to be more athletic, for example at inside linebacker. Basically counting on the coaches to get more out of our D, which I think is a realistic expectation. I could be crazy.

Defense is returning 80% of players on the two deep, plus a ton of redshirts plus a few promising freshmen. We will see if the coaches can put something together, they have pieces to work with.

We don’t have many question marks on offense. 22nd and third in our conference is not too high.
I think we are nearly back to being as good as we were in 2005, although the defense needs to show improvement to say that. I expect we will see a better defense.