I would love to use the "let's get them next year" line and really mean it. But I can't. The gaping holes in the lineup scare me and lead me to doubt whether we will even be competitive.
Start with the offensive line. When Radakovich went down, the offense started to stumble. When Pratt joined him, the offense shut down. Add to those two the loss of Main and Mady and you are left with just Elkins. Even if the replacements are good (a big if) they will be inexperienced.
The loss of Cook is devastating. Pace is a good power back but hardly a proper fit for a spread offense. Bellamy has shown little in three years. Hymes is an unproven commodity. Wolford's hype about him means nothing to me.
Fortunately, Hess returns and the receivers should be good, especially if Berassa recovers.
On defense, we lose the entire starting line, with only Sirl having a decent number of reps off the bench. Again, let's hope the replacements are good, but they will be totally inexperienced.
That leaves the linebackers and secondary as the "strength" of defense. Does that scare you as much as it does me?
The less said about Wolford's coaching abilities, the better. To repeat a point I made on another post, did Jim Tressel ever lose a game here in fifteen years when he took a double-digit lead into halftime? Losing double-digit leads is becoming Wolford's trademark.
Bottom line: this is a nightmare.
