Historically, our best seasons generally come when we are a junior dominated squad--the 2001 squad led by Ragone had defensively something like nine starters who were juniors that year (plus White who was a soph and Gallishaw who was a frosh). The 2006 Orange Bowl squad was junior dominated (Brohm, Douglas, Urrutia, Barnidge, Malik Jackson, Earl Heyman, et al.) as was Charlie Strong's 12-1 Russell Athletic Bowl squad. The junior class that is Lamar's is probably our deepest, at least as it applies to our offense with Jaylen Smith, Samuel, Peete, Mickey Crum, McNeil and Christian on the O line. I expect a number of major differences next season, perhaps less talent defensively but a little bit more depth which we are crying for right now provided the expected returnees return. Guys like Yeast weren't recruited to watch, and guys like Brian Edwards and CJ Avery are being recruited with the expectation that they are needed. We return virtually the entirety of our secondary which could be viewed either way given the number of times we were beaten over the top in 2016, but we'll have a whole bunch of bodies for coverage units you'd think. We need pass rushers to emerge, and we need guys like PJ Blue off of redshirt, Young back from injury and someone like Caban to live up to his high school plaudits. What is lost in 2016 the season is that we turned people over ALOT defensively...but we gave back more abundantly with our offense.
