On the field, the ranks are thin, but all news is not bad

OK, I ran the gloom and doom post earlier today--there are troubling signs for our program in terms of the athletes who are coming to our school. There have been significant departures. Let's look at how they all shake out, along with some other news from Ryan's talk with Coach Brandon.

First, the D-Line has been hard hit. Ryan writes:

• Hardwick was a projected starter and Barrow would have been in the two-deep.
• That leaves Michael Ream and Nick Torresso as your likes starters, with a couple redshirt freshmen and Nick Davis, who is coming off serious knee surgery.

We had D-Line problems last year. We sucked defending against the run. And, if we can't defend the run at least a little this year, we're not going to win the MAC. The D-Line has now passed the O-Line as the biggest concern on this football team, in my opinion.

Second, in positive news, Tyler Sheehan appears to be solid as starting QB with Andrew Beam in the back up role. We are, however, not deep at QB. Behind those two is true Fr. Aaron Pankratz and some walk ons.

Third, Eric Ransom is making huge progress. This is really important, He makes an enormous difference on the offensive side of the ball.