2009 Season: Make or break year?

[PSUVikings2]

After finishing under .500 once again in 2008, The Jerry Glanville era has been much less then expected. We have seen an offense that can never settle on 1 QB, and a defense that has been maybe the worst in Viking history, which is ironic considering who the Head Coach is. The scariest thing about all of it is we don;t look like we are getting better at all. Hawaii and Texas Tech blossomed very quickly with the R&S system, SMU is yet to be determined, why is taking so long for the offense to find rhythm? Besides the obvious(Rotating QB's)

The 2009 season doesn't look pretty as of now. Especially with our schedule.

@Oregon State L
Montana State L
@Montana L
@Eastern Washington W/L
Weber State L
@Idaho State W/L
Northern Arizona L
Sacramento State W/L
@Northern Colorado W/L

Is there hope for the Vikings in 09'?

 

[martymoose]

After finishing under .500 once again in 2008, The Jerry Glanville era has been much less then expected. We have seen an offense that can never settle on 1 QB, and a defense that has been maybe the worst in Viking history, which is ironic considering who the Head Coach is. The scariest thing about all of it is we don;t look like we are getting better at all. Hawaii and Texas Tech blossomed very quickly with the R&S system, SMU is yet to be determined, why is taking so long for the offense to find rhythm? Besides the obvious(Rotating QB's)

The 2009 season doesn't look pretty as of now. Especially with our schedule.

@Oregon State L
Montana State L
@Montana L
@Eastern Washington W/L
Weber State L
@Idaho State W/L
Northern Arizona L
Sacramento State W/L
@Northern Colorado W/L

Is there hope for the Vikings in 09'?

I'll never give up hope, but....

The ultimate problem is our defense. Yes, properties of the Run & Shoot sway TOP to the other team, and yes, our 3rd down conversion percentage on offense sucks at times. Those don't help the defense. However, we gave up 32.5 points per game this year, and that flat out sucks. I guess that's better than the 38 we averages in the year prior, but 32.5 per game won't get it done.

So are we getting better? I guess. We gave up more yards per game, but less points. That was probably the result of the one good thing that we saw this year, and that was an increase in forced turnovers. Call it 'bend but don't break' or whatever, but if we can have another year over year decrease of 5.5 points per game that we give up, that'll give us a shot at some more wins. KJ and Andy will be hard to replace, but we have quite a bit of young talent at linebacker. What we need is for a couple of guys to play like savage beasts on the defensive line and plug up the middle and contain the outside. Guys like Beckley, Manupuna, Jacobs, Ma'aseia, Shackford, Sommer need to block up that middle so that the LBs can zero on on the ball and force some turnovers.