Some football updates

 Just a few things from football...no the schedules are not out yet but people are waiting impatiently.  Should be any time.

Spring practice is underway.  BG has a lot of injuries.  This includes Conner Bazelak, who has surgery in January, and Orth, neither of whom will be ready until June.  Coach has them in intensive, Loeffler-led film study.  Better them than me.

Meanwhile, Lucian Anderson will get the reps for spring and Loeffler has advised him to practice like he is the guy.  This isn't bad...Anderson is in line to compete for the top job next year, along with anyone else who might arrive by them.  BG is offering QBs all over the place and there's always the portal.  But this is a chance for Anderson to position himself for that role. He is a redshirt FR this season.

Running backs are also thin.  We expect Stewart back by camp, but the role Keith played is open.  No help was found in the portal but Coach hinted that there could be a player or players in the freshman class who get snaps this year.

Diego Neri is in the portal. He was Academic All-MAC and played in all the games last year, mostly on special teams.  I suspect he got to spring practice, wasn't where he hoped to be on the charts and wants to look elsewhere.  Wish him nothing but the best.

One factor might be that BG has moved Trent Simms to LB.

This is a pretty big season.  BG has gone from awful to decent.  Last year, we lost to the better teams in the MAC and ran wild through an extremely weak part of the schedule.  We were better.  But we need to go from decent to contending for the title, which is just as hard if not harder.

Hopefully, the schedule is slightly more favorable--though it will remain challenging so long as we have to go to two P5 games like Penn State and Texas A&M.  There will be a conference game in the week between those two games, so we can hope it won't be against a top team.  Our G5 game is at home and not against a team likely to go undefeated.

I think continuity was the way to go.  I am not convinced that we will break the 5-3 MAC ceiling...but it would certainly be great to see it happen.