FIUFanatic said

I agree with FAUowls44. There is no way, at least at this point, that ANY Shula Bowl is a surefight win by any of the two teams. Our team will be without a lot of Seniors that graduated last season. However, there's a difference in the QB comparison made earlier, for whatever it is worth. Padrick has been starting since his freshman year and returning as leader, whereas Embick was a backup to Jared Allen. I'd give Padrick there a definite advantage. Still, I'd say, at this point, FAU should be favored.

What exactly is the number of players you guys have lost? How many are starters?

On Defense there are a few transfers from schools like Ole Miss, Boston College and Villanova on the squad that were high reguarded recruits coming out of HS a year or two ago. I don't know which will be starting this year but on paper they look good. I didn't know they were there till they apeared on the roster this summer.

The kids played against Minnesota, Louisville, Oklahoma St. and Kansas last year. They know what the big league teams are doing and what the level of play is in those conferences. Experience doesn't happen overnight otherwise I would be making a lot more money than I am now at my new job.

fauowls44 said

FIUFanatic said

I agree with FAUowls44. There is no way, at least at this point, that ANY Shula Bowl is a surefight win by any of the two teams. Our team will be without a lot of Seniors that graduated last season. However, there's a difference in the QB comparison made earlier, for whatever it is worth. Padrick has been starting since his freshman year and returning as leader, whereas Embick was a backup to Jared Allen. I'd give Padrick there a definite advantage. Still, I'd say, at this point, FAU should be favored.

What exactly is the number of players you guys have lost? How many are starters?

We did lose 28 Seniors. However, those numbers include 4 players that didn't even dress up for their Senior year (but were there from day 1 practice year), so in reality, we lost 24 Seniors. Of those, I would say 4 or 5 rarely saw any playing time. I would say that Senior class had something like 14-15 players that were either starters at one point part time starters) or troughout, or contributed heavily in playing time.

We return about 10 ""part-time" starters on defense, really 7 "bonafide" starters from last season. As for the offense, we return 6 bonafide starters from last season, including two of the top three leading receivers, and our QB. Our 5 "expected" stars (Padric at QB, Williams at WR, Smith at TE, Bouie at LB, and Barnes at DE) are returning Senior starters, so there will be a lot of experience at the positions our best players play, unlike last season, where I would say we only lost three "stars" of the team (Turnbull at DB, McKinney at WR, and Cernius at OL).

However, the OL, while we have 3 "part-time" starters returning, will lose a lot of the stability we had with the starting Seniors departing, so there we will have a problem with consistency, especially early in the season, most likely.