HookedonGriz said:
Jibjab68 said:
HookedonGriz said:
Jibjab68 said:
Let the Griz think we are beatable. To me A loss to the Griz would be a big upset. The only advantage I see that the Griz have on us is at LB and home field advantage. Other than that I would give a huge edge at QB and OL to the Eags and the edge to the Eags at WR and RB as well. Defensively i think our secondary is going to be the strength of our team and our DL has to be one of the best in the Big Sky. The Griz do have a great LB corp but ours is right behind. Griz special teams SUCKKKKKKK! big advantage to the Eags. Coach Best has assembled a great staff and I do not expect a big drop off from coach B.
I see us getting beat at Texas Tech but in a competitive game. We will lose one more either against NDSU or UND to put our final record at 9-2 and at least a share of the Big Sky title. Eags expect to win championships. Griz used to expect it over a decade ago. FTG!!!
I don't know how it will all shake out. But to say the EWU receiving corps are better than Griz is a heck of a stretch IMO. You lost 3 guys who were responsible for 72% of EWUs receiving yards. They were all over 1000 yards receiving. That's an incredible feat. I don't think you just automatically replace that. A lot of you say "we are only losing Cupp so it won't hurt that bad". Ummmm you lost 3 receivers who are all in NFL camps this year. 3 of them! No doubt you have some UNPROVEN talent in Williams and Xavier James but they haven't caught a pass, yet. So I'll reserve my judgement til then. So the only proven receiving offense you got coming back are Sblendorio and Stu Stiles (401 yards and 380 yards....14% of the receiving production.)
The Griz, on the exact flip end, have every single one of their proven receivers back who were responsible for 72% of receiving yards (over 2500 of the 3500 passing yards). So for those reasons alone I think it's a very bold claim to say the WR core at EWU is better. I'm sure they'll be good and we will see the next great EWU receiver emerge but that is too early of a claim.
Well, in your logic you need to consider who is throwing the ball. Gubrud accounted for over95% of the passing yards while the eventual Griz QB accounted for less than 5%. Gubrud will put up over 4000 yrds. again this year to this receiving Corp.
You've also left out Terrance Grady who was slated to play A lot last year but red shirt because the WR position was so loaded. You also seem to forget about Nsimba Webster who was getting decent production before an injury took him out for most of the season. He reminds me a lot of shaq hill and did not disappoint in spring.
So yes, Nsimba, Splendo, Stiles and Grady as the main receivers with Williams, Dre Dorton, Eagle, Xavier James and 2 3 star recruits coming in as freshman make this WR corp better than the Fizzlies. Especially when you consider who is throwing the ball.
Strange, never in my post or yours were we talking QBs. You said the WR core of EWU is better than the Griz. I said that's a stretch and laid out some good reasons why.
If you want to bring QBs into it, then there's no debate. Gubrud is arguably the best QB in all of FCS, while the Griz put out an unproven new starter (like the Eags do with most your receivers). As for Webster, he had 64 yards receiving in 8 games. Didn't exactly set the world on fire. That's my point, you want to put unproven against proven and all I'm saying is that's a stretch.
I know Griz Nation is much more excited about the passing abilities of our new QBs and the ability to spread it out, use all the field, and not just throw chicken shit dump downs to JLM (although those could go to the house at any given time, too). Word on the street is Brady was worried about hurting himself and his potential pro career so it was very very very easy to bubble screen it to JLM or anyone else in that slot. It got old for us in a hurry. I think we won't see that every other play with these other slingers. But it's unproven so I'll wait and see.
As an avid Eastern fan, I'll juts say this... I'm very comfortable with our receiving corps. It is possible we see a drop off this year as we lost three of the best ever in Cheney, but the guys coming in are damn talented on their own. We probably got the best receiving recruits ever in a single Big Sky recruiting class (and I'm a notorious pessimist and willing to say that). More than likely, most of those guys will redshirt, but Stiles, Splendorio, and Grady are a tough threesome on their own. Maybe this will be the year it all clicks for Webster as well. I feel every one of those guys is a better receiver than Louis-Magee, although admittedly that guy's athleticism does make him an explosive threat.
The big feather in the cap for Montana is an astronomically better schedule early in the year. We travel to Lubbock, come back to Cheney for the Bison, and then across the country to play Fordham. You guys get UW and the two dwarfs. If there are kinks in the system early in the year, the Griz have time work to through them. Eastern doesn't have that luxury. Our reserves will get very little PT in those three games, so if we have a few injuries, it is a potential nightmare.
, I also think there's the potential (not likely though) for disaster early on with this early road heavy schedule against solid talent. I'm hoping our team adapts to the traveling early on and embraces it. Hoping to make it out of that mess at least 2-2 but I have scenarios playing out in my head that have 1-3 
and 0-4 :shock:. Not trying to be a pessimist or anything like that but crazier things have happened. It's hard to win on the road. Any honest coach will tell you that. Even coaches that have great teams know that. Just for fun I'll throw out some percentages about what I think might happen in the eags first four games:
