2021 expectations

Win the Pac-12 is the expectation. With 20 of 22 starters back, with the blue chip ratio still pretty high and now they will be upper class I expect a Pac-12 title.

Anything less I’ll see this year as a failure unless it’s like an 11-1 or something weird like that. This 2021 team should be 2016 level great.

GoDawgs91 wrote:

Win the Pac-12 is the expectation. With 20 of 22 starters back, with the blue chip ratio still pretty high and now they will be upper class I expect a Pac-12 title.

Anything less I’ll see this year as a failure unless it’s like an 11-1 or something weird like that. This 2021 team should be 2016 level great.

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No way will this 2021 team be on par with 2016 unless 10 guys pop of 22 starters next year.

2016 team is better at all 3 levels on D (safety/corner comparison, ilb, Vita/Greg lol)

On Offense 2016 is better at rb, wr, ol, and even at best at TE/QB as it stands today.

Must Must Must win the North with home schedule and road games against Beavs, Buffs, Arizona and Stanford (although against Tree it is a loss until otherwise proven) for Jimmy and Recruiting.

BAMA of the PNW

godawgst wrote:

GoDawgs91 wrote:

Win the Pac-12 is the expectation. With 20 of 22 starters back, with the blue chip ratio still pretty high and now they will be upper class I expect a Pac-12 title.

Anything less I’ll see this year as a failure unless it’s like an 11-1 or something weird like that. This 2021 team should be 2016 level great.

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No way will this 2021 team be on par with 2016 unless 10 guys pop of 22 starters next year.

2016 team is better at all 3 levels on D (safety/corner comparison, ilb, Vita/Greg lol)

On Offense 2016 is better at rb, wr, ol, and even at best at TE/QB as it stands today.

Must Must Must win the North with home schedule and road games against Beavs, Buffs, Arizona and Stanford (although against Tree it is a loss until otherwise proven) for Jimmy and Recruiting.

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Going into 2016 UW had several unknowns who became stars. Ross was coming off injury, Pettis had shown himself to be good, not great, Browning was still young and no better than Morris. Only Myles was a bona-fide star on offense. OL was not very highly regarded. Years of inedaquate OL before that.

The defense was a surprise but only Budda, Azeem, Bierria, etc. were really stars going into the season. Rapp was young, King was average before 2016, Sidney was good, but none of the guys on the Dline were considered a big deal before the season.

2015 was not a great season, it was pretty good, but the guys we have coming into this season have just as much of a track record and better recruiting pedigrees than the guys on the 2016 team.

Your post is not very well-considered. 2016 was a surprise to everyone, players prove themselves over an entire season not before.

With Covid we could be going with a ten game format next year or less though…

Chest wrote:

Sometime I will do a comparison of the 2016 offseason with 2021 offseason.

As I recall the questions heading into 2016 were about WRs and the OL. The only question on defense was edge play.

The key questions are the middle of the defense (safety, inside lb) and if the offense will play to its strengths and let Cam be the bell cow.

We should have an elite pass rush and I wonder if that will cover up any weaknesses on defense.

The schedule is very easy. Road games are Stanford, Colorado, Arizona, Oregon St.

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Agree with this 100%. Although I’d add if we are gonna be similar caliber to 2016 we need the young DTs to take a significant step forward as well. I’ve complained a ton about Sirmon at MLB but the DTs will to be much better against the run as well.

godawgst wrote:

GoDawgs91 wrote:

Win the Pac-12 is the expectation. With 20 of 22 starters back, with the blue chip ratio still pretty high and now they will be upper class I expect a Pac-12 title.

Anything less I’ll see this year as a failure unless it’s like an 11-1 or something weird like that. This 2021 team should be 2016 level great.

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No way will this 2021 team be on par with 2016 unless 10 guys pop of 22 starters next year.

2016 team is better at all 3 levels on D (safety/corner comparison, ilb, Vita/Greg lol)

On Offense 2016 is better at rb, wr, ol, and even at best at TE/QB as it stands today.

Must Must Must win the North with home schedule and road games against Beavs, Buffs, Arizona and Stanford (although against Tree it is a loss until otherwise proven) for Jimmy and Recruiting.

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You are comparing what we know what 2016 team ended up being vs what 2021 is projected to do.

Going into the season the team for 2021 will be projected better than 2016 I suspect.

Keep in mind Chest was basically ran from Hardcore Husky for saying we’d win the North and labeled a Doog going into 2016. Even both his own two Co-Host said Petersen would never win the Pac-12 North as well.

When this program was ranked 14th preseason going into 2016 every Duck fan was laughing about how this is “another special year for the doogs”.

It all came together beautifully in 2016. I’m hoping 2021 can as well. Remember those young DL will now be in their third and fourth years in the program now. Our great recruiting LB class of 2019 will be in their third season as well.

Hopefully we play the best talent at RB is my only worry. I hope RB isn’t our WR problem of 2019.

My expectation is to win at least 10 games, win the North, and win the conference. If we still have the annual shit the bed games against inferior opponents that we used to have under Petersen then it’s a red flag on Lake. With this roster and schedule we should be favored in every game except Michigan.

DawgDaze71 wrote:

The 2016 Defense lived by their Interior Lineman (when Mathis went down our Edge pressure evaporated)

the LB Victor and Bierria and our exceptional secondary with great Safety play. That allowed us to keep everything in front of us and not require a lot from our Edge guys other than try to funnel the play back inside where we were stronger.

We kept the Defense relatively healthy but the lack of depth hurt us when Mathis and eventually Victor went down.

2021..isn’t as strong on the Interior yet but we’re larger and more athletic at the Edge and we’re 2-Deep with quality.

We need the thumper at Safety but Eddie is already where Victor was as a Senior and Eddies only a Junior. DB will be solid.

Even if we don’t get stellar Safety play the 2021 should be markedly better than 2016. It would have been this year had Tryon and Onwuzurike not left. The team was “still” the best Total Defense in the league despite having a many as 5 lineman gone (Bowman sick, Tuli injured, Levi/Joe gone, Latu injured)

That’s incredible. Any other past team had we lost even Vea and Gaines for a few games we likely would have lost to any decent team.

You got Duck fans whining about losing Sewell and Holland. Penei doesn’t play defense what their excuse for piss poor defense? We lost 4 guys on the line

2021

You can tell that Coach K was not happy at all about the Safety play. They yanked Alex Cook when he was nowhere around the ball and they let Asa know that his spot wasn’t that solid when they put Cam in for some series. Unfortunately Cam didn’t take advantage.

If you’re Covington, Esteen, Pei, you can make your move here at Safety.

ILB other than Eddie has me frustrated. I’m not that mad about Sirmon…he’s not Manu but I watched Tupatala play ..great looking player but didn’t show a lot of instinct in getting to the ball. The position is a lot of instinct. Nate Landman stepped on the Colorado campus and just “got it” from day. If your LB is 3 years in the program ..has had game reps and “still” doesn’t get the instinct part you gotta move on.

DB– I’m curious to see who’s going to make the next leap. Kam Fab got some playing time, I think Dom Hampton is too big to play DB …I think he’s Safety. Who out of Elijah Jackson, James Smith and Irvin are going to rise and take a position?

Don’t be surprised if McCutcheon end up in the 2-Deeps at slot. I think the “only” reason why Dyson isn’t a composite 4-star is that he’s 2 inches shorter than they want him to be. He does everything well ..he’s got the pedigree. He’ll make a move at some time in the season.

Edge

I remember looking at good Miami teams back in the day and their Edge guys were 265 lbs and could run and I was envious. We have that now. If Latu looked as good as Coach K stated and the ascendence of ZTF you have Baby Bow and Smalls a 5-Star kid. We’ve never had this amount of talent at the Edge. At least since I’ve been watching the UW.

I think this vindicated a lot of us that were believe this season’s team would have been a better D than 2016. If you give me Levi, Tuli, Tryon and Bowman as your starters against Stanford with Smalls, Latu and ZTF as backups. We don’t lose to Stanford. We dominate the line and they’re under 4 ypc.

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Not attacking you Daze with my disagreement but the 21 D will not be as good as the 16 D.

The 15 D was quite good and the only question was edge play. Even without Victor and Mathis, that D held Bama to 17 points. Bill Connelly has raved about how good it was.

The only spot the 21 D will be better is edge play.

Theres no Budda Baker or Taylor Rapp at safety. No one is as good as Azeem at ILB. The front line won’t be as good.

The key for the D is we need to see many guys make a leap. Most notably Asa Turner, Dom Hampton, Julius Irvin, Fatui Tuitele, Jacob Bandes, Sam Taimani, as well as all those 3rd year ILBs (Calvert, Ah You, Tuputala).

Having a pass rush is huge and that will give the D a bigger margin for error. An elite pass rush can change a D.

But if you really want to be a nationally elite D, like in 2016, you have no weaknesses or no weak players, that can be taken advantage of by the offense.

Heading into the season, you have weak spots at one ILB, one corner, and both safety spots.

This is before seeing who will pop, which is hard to predict. I bet we’ll see at least one flash in the DB group and ILB. But these positions are still questions (if you want to be a playoff contender) heading into the season.

I actually think Irvin is going to be really good next year.

He is an elite track guy, got that 4.4 speed. I know he had that rough game, but that WR that beat him for that TD is actually really good according to PFF. Forgot his name but that kid from Arizona was like top 3 in the pac12 according to PFF, no shame getting beat by him.

I expect Irvin to lock down the slot and Kyler to play safety. Dom is going to be nasty as our other Corner, better than Keith Taylor. He graded really high on limited snaps according to PFF. He also has elite track times.