Not too excited about this year

[Globetrotter]

Not to birdman everyone but I was looking at the roster yesterday and there are just too many question marks everywhere. I am excited about Jordan, Woods, Gates and Jones and thats about it. We don't have a ton of studs coming back. We had an entire year for guys to step up and few really stood out. How many rebuilding years do we got in us?

[Falconfreak90]

This team is gonna surprise some folks this year....better than most expect. Just a gut feeling...still a young team but they are HUNGRY. Nobody likes going thru what we did last year and guys don't forget that feeling.

As always, I'm totally geeked for the season to start.

GO FALCONS!!!

[Flipper]

Don't take this personally, but quit your damn whining...

There were some significant issues with the program...attrition...APR..etc... It's hard to fix that in a year or two. Rebuildong takes time if you do it correctly. I think we'll be vastly improved because the talent is there...even if the maturity and experience isn't. I'm looking forward to this year...watching a team grow and mature isn't as much fun as watching a team win 10 or more games, but it's fun nonetheless.

I think we need a freeshman to step in at DE right away and that scares me a bit...and I don't know if Schilz is the guy...I think Hurley might pass him on the depth chart this fall...but I like where we're headed...

[bgdodgeball4]

I see what you're saying, but on the other hand, rebuilds can be exciting.

I'm interested in seeing which QB (Schilz, Johnson, Hurley, and even Stokes) grabs ahold of the starting job for the next couple years.

I'm interested in which RB does the same. Is Hopgood the answer? What about Jamel Martin (3 star guy)? Or Anthon Samuel, the kid from Florida? He's an unknown.

I'm probably most interested in the WR position. Jorden and Cooper are solid. I'd like to see how that entire situation plays out besides those two. Is Hodges going to step up? Heath Jackson was a beast in high school. Shaun Joplin has a lot of potential. Nick McKnight, Justus Jones, Ray Hutson, Marcus Beaurem - a lot of bodies, a lot of question marks. And then there's the two guys from Florida - Coby and Gallon. Both 3 star guys, and I'm assuming they're pretty fast. Will they redshirt or play right away?

At TE, Bayer looks good. Montgomery is huge, I'd like to see him play some. Beck and Rolf are good athletes.

Our OL should be improved over last year. They'll be another year experienced, at least, and everyone is healed up.

D-line lost a lot, but it will be interesting who plays and if they'll be effective. Chris Jones is a great player.

Woods at LB should be fun to watch. Dude is a beast.

A lot of young guys in the secondary, but that's the fun of all this, right? Boo Boo should be fun to watch, Morgan makes plays, and we've heard good things about Foster.


We do know one thing: we're very young. To me, just seeing which young guys will step up is exciting. I'd be ecstatic if we won 10 games, but if we win 5 and show a ton of improvement next year should be crazy. That's what I'm looking forward to - seeing improvement more than anything. Hopefully some guys will step up. We've had 3 straight solid recruiting classes - now is the time these guys will start to see the field. I'm looking forward to seeing how they can do.

[MarkL]

FWIW ... CFN's preview of BG is up. I'm no huge CFN fan, and their grammatical mistakes, football accuracy mistakes, and spamming ads piss me off, but to them a successful season would be us winning the east.

The season will be a success if … The Falcons win the East. It’ll be a big push to go from 2-10 to MAC East champion, and it’ll be even tougher with a road date at defending champion Miami and with dates against Western Michigan, Toledo, and Northern Illinois from the West, but the slate isn’t that bad with some of the biggest games at home. Winning the division might be a bit too much to ask for, but if the experience can translate into production, it’s a reasonable goal to shoot for.

In other words, those folks know that this team is going to be WAY better than last year. A young team that finished a handful of plays from 6-6 that is returning this much talent and depth? That's worth being excited. Yeah, the offense may not be the flashy 500+ yards/game of old, but it should be far more efficient and focused on clock management than before. That would surely help the defense. I'm excited! Can't wait to dish out some vengeance in Moscow, ID

[birdman]

Who is birdman? I've heard he's a hard core BG man and always wants whats best for the falcons. He is in the process of seeing mental doctors and on medication before the season starts and wants the player to play their hearts out for the love of the game and not to worry about him. He will always have their back

[Globetrotter]

Bayer and Bojicic are two other guys that I think are exciting but seemed to leave off.

I love rebuilding and seeing who comes out of things more then most usually, but wasn't that what last year was suppossed to be about. I feel like we are still laying the basement. I may be over stating things a bit but this is how things are as I see it. *On the playmakers and the rest are returning playmakers

QB ?
RB ?
FB ?
WR Jorden*
WR ?
TE Bayer*
LT ?
LG Flewelleyn
C Bogicic*
RG Robinson
RT Roussos

K ?
P ?
LS ?

DE ?
DT Jones*
DT ?
DE ?
OLB ?
MLB Woods*
Rover Gates*
CB Truss
CB Spencer
S Morgan
S Leacock


I got more excited why I did that......(shut up)

[Flipper]

Morgan and Leacock aren't starting at safety...Morgan is playing the LB/S clone that Sanderson played and I don't think Leacock is that high on the depth chart right now...

So far as the OL goes...I think we're strong at the inside spots...we'll see about the tackles.

[Falconfreak90]

I see what you're saying, but on the other hand, rebuilds can be exciting.

I'm interested in seeing which QB (Schilz, Johnson, Hurley, and even Stokes) grabs ahold of the starting job for the next couple years.

I'm interested in which RB does the same. Is Hopgood the answer? What about Jamel Martin (3 star guy)? Or Anthon Samuel, the kid from Florida? He's an unknown.

I'm probably most interested in the WR position. Jorden and Cooper are solid. I'd like to see how that entire situation plays out besides those two. Is Hodges going to step up? Heath Jackson was a beast in high school. Shaun Joplin has a lot of potential. Nick McKnight, Justus Jones, Ray Hutson, Marcus Beaurem - a lot of bodies, a lot of question marks. And then there's the two guys from Florida - Coby and Gallon. Both 3 star guys, and I'm assuming they're pretty fast. Will they redshirt or play right away?

At TE, Bayer looks good. Montgomery is huge, I'd like to see him play some. Beck and Rolf are good athletes.

Our OL should be improved over last year. They'll be another year experienced, at least, and everyone is healed up.

D-line lost a lot, but it will be interesting who plays and if they'll be effective. Chris Jones is a great player.

Woods at LB should be fun to watch. Dude is a beast.

A lot of young guys in the secondary, but that's the fun of all this, right? Boo Boo should be fun to watch, Morgan makes plays, and we've heard good things about Foster.


We do know one thing: we're very young. To me, just seeing which young guys will step up is exciting. I'd be ecstatic if we won 10 games, but if we win 5 and show a ton of improvement next year should be crazy. That's what I'm looking forward to - seeing improvement more than anything. Hopefully some guys will step up. We've had 3 straight solid recruiting classes - now is the time these guys will start to see the field. I'm looking forward to seeing how they can do.

Solid post...good points all around.

In other words, the potential is definitely there...how quickly it all comes together is anyone's guess.

Shooting for the East title should be a goal every year. And this team is capable of winning the East...we were three plays away from beating Miami, Temple and Buffalo. Yeah we had clunkers at Ohio and vs Kent.

Just put the damn ball on the tee in Moscow, ID....it'll go from there.

GO FALCONS!!!!! 40 days....

[Drago]

We won't compete with the top teams in the conference (UT, MU, OU). The only other game we wont win is Temple, because we'll get out coached. The other games are all winnable, but we'll have to play well. A lot of our games were close only beause our opponents turned the ball over a ton. That probably won't happen as frequently this year.


As far as rebuilding goes, we are rebuilding because we are choosing to. Clawson didnt like a lot of the leftovers and he chose to just not play them, then complain about depth. The APR was used by GC as an excuse to support his firing of Brandon. According to several people, GC turned on Brandon the summer before, because of a disagreement the two had in a staff meeting. The outbursy after the Buffalo game gave him his opportunity, because fans were angry. If things were so bad, why did GC sign Brandon to an extension 10 months before he fired him?

[Flipper]

GC was pissed at Brandon because off the off field issues...home invasion ring a bell? Credit card theft remind you of anything? You had your starting QB blasting his teammates during the MAC media day because he was fed up with all the crap that was going on...that's a problem. The APR was an excuse? We were short eight scholarships because of APR...how is that an excuse?

I'll give you the same question I gave idio..I mean birdman. Name one decent player form the Brandon years that didn't get a fair shot under Clawson...

[mmisbg]

I've heard quite a few theories about why GB got fired. To be honest, I think they are all right. The amalgamation of the problems existing with our football team is what caused GB to be fired.

As for why he was extended, it is simple: You want a coach to be contracted past the upcoming season in order to enable recruiting efforts to be successful.

All too quick we are forgetting how much the team was spiraling out of control before GB was fired.

-Our special teams were a joke. We couldn't even reliably count on extra points to be successful, let alone a field goal past 30 yards. Occasionally we had decent returns, but our return coverage was terrible.

-Our defense was indescribably bad. No tackling, no speed, no productivity. I do not care what the stats say about our defense last year. If you watched the games, and considered the amount of time they were on the field...combined with the interceptions, sacks, tackles for loss, and critical stops made on 3rd down; they were a heck of a lot better than we could have predicted GB would have fielded.

-Our offense, once the pioneering staple of BG football, had been rendered ineffective. Every defense in division one, except ours, had figured out how to stop it. What is more, current trends in D-IA recruiting had made it nearly impossible for us to acquire players capable of running Brandon's offensive scheme. It wasn't ineffective due to numerous injuries in key areas, it was ineffective due to lack of recruitment, innovation, and execution.

-Academic progress started to take a nose dive about 2 years after UM left.

-Off the field issues (weed smoking in the lot, credit card fraud, unlawful entry, assault, etc) were becoming all too common and unpunished.

-GB's mouth was pissing off fans and alumni.

Brandon needed to go...period.

The only reason we are questioning things now is due to the season we had last year. Once again people, look at what happened to our offensive line. After that, our offense went three and out so often, the team didn't have a prayer. Despite that, we still had 4 games decided by 3 points or less.

Miami of Ohio, the team who set a record by being the first D-IA team to go from double digit losses to double digit victories in a single season, needed a last second field goal to beat us. Temple, the supposed MAC power-house, barely got a victory against us. For god's sake, we had a back-up defensive lineman playing starting offensive lineman, and we still had close games.

The notion that we would be out-coached by a team that has changed coaches, and barely beat us last year...despite our problems on O-line...give me a break.

A year and a half ago, we were concerned that some other team might snatch Clawson away from us. Quite frankly, the thing that concerns me most is the possibility that Clawson might crush all of the concerns on this message board this season, and send us back to square one when some BCS school lures him away with big money.

[1987alum]

I'm pumped for this season. After all, it's Falcon football!

[Falcon Fanatic]

I'm pumped for this season. After all, it's Falcon football!

+1

Are you and Noah coming back for a game??????

[1987alum]

Fingers crossed ... the Morgan State game looks like a good possibility. I just need our CFO (Mrs. 87) to give us the green light!