[DAWG NATION21]

Three things will determine the Dawgs season and how much they improve.(1)Defense...the defense was,for the most part, lousy last year.Played horribly against the pass throughout the season and was poor setting the edges and defending the outside runs. A lot of injuries and a lot of youth rotated in and out of the line up which lead to most of it but also not being aggressive. The bright side is that they return a lot of talented players like Sizemore,Rasnake,Blankenship and others that should have great years.(2)How well can they replace the interior of their o-line? It was no secret that LC liked to run the ball and run it between the tackles. They return both tackles but lost some great linemen in Robertson,Shortridge and Ratliff at the center and both guard positions.(3)Can they develop a passing game? Not saying they have to throw it all over the field but enough to keep teams from loading the box all the time. Hall and Johnson are both tall and fast and have to come up big this year at wr. West needs more work with the passing game and in my opinion the coaches need to help him out a bit more with some shorter, easier routes and make sure he has some check downs or some routes for the tight end so that he can have easier reads and get the ball out faster. The Dawgs will have plenty of weapons this year but have to have some sort of balance to be able to consistently move the ball against great defenses.I think they will continue to improve but don't see an undefeated season.They have enough talent to have an 8-2/7-3 season which would be great to me considering the good teams on their schedule.