why? You're certainly entitled to your opinion, and if your reasoning is "because I say so" I don't have anything to add, but I've seen a few other spartans make this claim, and I'm not sure what will be the source of the improvement. they should be decent. could possibly be better... but more likely they'll drop a bit. they lost some solid players, didn't seem to replace them with anyone comparable, and it's not like MSU has a new coach coming in who could lead to improvement (like we did with Mattison).
I'm not as concerned with our losses, aside from our interior OL and losing Roundtree.
While we don't have any experienced wideouts with height or speed, I think Gardner's passing ability will more than make up for it. basically, Gardner with avg. receivers is a better passing game than Robinson with great receivers. Funchess could have a huge season.
as far as Vegas' odds, I'll take a look at those again when each team has played a couple games.
Well, Calhoun actually had more QB pressures than William Gholston last year in about a 3rd of the snaps. The DTs will be deeper and have a year more experience. The LBs all return with a year more experience, Norman lost his starting job to Jones midseason and never regained it. The DBs return 6 of their top 7 on the depth chart and Trae Waynes was outpplaying Johnny Adams by year's end. So yeah, the defense is clearly better and deeper on paper. Our defense is returning 17 of 22 players off our two deep and all of them contributed last year on the field. Only 1 player that is gone, William Gholston, started all the games for us last season. Narduzzi rotates all the players, we saw 6+ LBs get snaps every game, we saw 7 or 8 DBs get snaps every game, 9-10 D linemen, these guys have all proven they can play and produce for a top 5 defense in 2012. This year's defense is the culmination of a 6 year process, it's took 6 years and change to produce the kind of depth that you'll see in 2013 for the Spartan defense.
You're not worried about losing the only player that kept defenses honest in Denard Robinson? You're not worried about losing basically all of your consistent playmakers on defense? Don't tell me you've recruited well, you're losing proven producers all over that defense including arguably your 4 best player makers in Demons, Roh, Ryan (Unless you believe that drivel about him coming back in October from a blownout knee), and Kovacs, and other solid starters in Floyd and Campbell. On top of that 2 of the key players you are counting on are recuperating from catastrophic leg injuries in Toussaint and Countess, don't expect them to be who they were for another year. Heck, even Gardner is a question mark at QB, he;s only started a hand full of games and wasn't all that great on a few of them.
Basically, you're going off from what the guys at Rivals and Scout have to say about your players rather than what has been proven on the field. Good luck with that.
Michigan will be decent and an easier schedule will give you some wins, but don't think you can lose all you lost and just replace them with unproven guys and be just as good, just because those guys had a million stars next to their names in high school. You'll be decent because Hoke and Mattison appear to be good coaches, but that team is not close to the point of reloading yet.
