2025 Defense outlook

[BelligerentBobcat]

My opinion.

Defensive End: Improved-- Grebe is a huge loss, but he also wasn't healthy for most of the season so it's not like what they're losing from 2024 is his full impact. Eiden, Crews, Solano, and Parsons are going to form a fearsome rotation.

Defensive Tackle: Improved-- The big loss here is Schmidt, but they already learned to play without him for the bulk of last season. Brott is one of the best DT's in the conference and Eckert returns next to him. Black is experienced depth and then there's a whole group of up and comers with tons of talent-- Sharbono, Marsh, Tanupo, Wiens. This group looks strong for years to come.

Linebacker: Push-- Daily and Grebe are both so talented that there's a chance this position is stronger in 2025 and given how many snaps they saw this last year it's hard to say that it will be much worse. I'm not worried about the depth with talents like Taylor, Bowles, Krahe, and Dethman on the come. They could easily add a transfer here if they're uncomfortable with the depth, but I don't think that's a "must."

Cornerback: Regressed-- I'm sure that the staff will continue to add to this position, but they're losing their top 3 guys in Woodard, Johnson, and Powdrell and thus will be relying quite a bit on young guys. I will say that if you include nickel in this position group, I fully expect Tayden Gray to be a force and to improve that aspect of the secondary.

Safety: Regressed-- Again, I'm sure that the staff will continue to add here, but they had one of the best safety tandems in the country and both players are gone. It helps to get Dowler back and one just hopes that he's 100% healthy and ready to start the season.

Overall: Push-- I think the defense will hold serve in 2025, which would be fantastic because they were unbelievably good in 2024. I'm pleased that their strengths start up front and along the line of scrimmage. I would way rather have a great front seven with some youth/weakness in the secondary than the other way around. The X factor here, to me, is how big of a step Daily and Grebe can make together. If they both level up, I think the unit as a whole could even be better than it was last year. It's rare at the FCS level to have two guys with their combination of size and movement skills. The question is whether their experience in 2024 adequately trained their instincts and will allow them to get their eyes to the right spot most of the time.

I understand your take. I think a lot of our fans and fans everywhere use this thought process which I consider a safe way to think about it. Personally I think a lot of our fans are a little behind the curve on where we are as a football program.

Like with Mellott I’m going to have an unpopular opinion on this but while I think O’Reilly and Ortt were very good players I never thought either had the speed needed to be great. The one element that was missing last year was overall team speed on defense.

I agree with TC88 that speed will increase this year. I am also very confident that our staff which were all in new roles or just new last year is going to develop players much better than last year. Sean Herrin put out a tweet about 2-3 weeks ago that spoke volumes about the program and I’m now a firm believer based on that confirming what I was already thinking.

Speed is great, decisiveness/decision making and instincts are better. Ortt had that. Lots of fast athletes make poor angles and bad decisions. Having both would be NFL talent. QB's even more so. Dave Dickenson was a great example of decision making vs. great arm and speed. I agree with you though.....team speed matters.

I think what you and others are overlooking is the player development aspect of what MSU does. I think the reason Ortt was good is because his decision making was developed by our coaches. Players that are poor decision makers often have poor coaching.

There are other safeties on this team that take horrid angles. I’m not going to name them, but they have the same coaches too.

Some players are just naturally more instinctive than others. Ed Reed was one of those. Ortt was always an instinctive player, and yes the coaching helped improve that, but some players just have it, and some don’t. It’s not all coaching.

[kennethnoisewater]

I wonder how all the great defensive players that played in the Big Sky feel about Robbie Hauck being the all time tackle leader. Little Robbie couldn’t even hold the jockstrap of most those guys. Pathetic.

I happen to know that some griz defensive players (recent ones) aren't happy about Hauck being the all time tackle leader. Everybody knows he was laughably overrated. Not saying he was terrible, but one of the best in BSC history? I'm not sure he was ever the best defensive player on his team. I'm told you can also ask his former teammates at NAU whether they thought he was one of the greats.

[WetBreeches]

My opinion.

Defensive End: Improved-- Grebe is a huge loss, but he also wasn't healthy for most of the season so it's not like what they're losing from 2024 is his full impact. Eiden, Crews, Solano, and Parsons are going to form a fearsome rotation.

Defensive Tackle: Improved-- The big loss here is Schmidt, but they already learned to play without him for the bulk of last season. Brott is one of the best DT's in the conference and Eckert returns next to him. Black is experienced depth and then there's a whole group of up and comers with tons of talent-- Sharbono, Marsh, Tanupo, Wiens. This group looks strong for years to come.

Linebacker: Push-- Daily and Grebe are both so talented that there's a chance this position is stronger in 2025 and given how many snaps they saw this last year it's hard to say that it will be much worse. I'm not worried about the depth with talents like Taylor, Bowles, Krahe, and Dethman on the come. They could easily add a transfer here if they're uncomfortable with the depth, but I don't think that's a "must."

Cornerback: Regressed-- I'm sure that the staff will continue to add to this position, but they're losing their top 3 guys in Woodard, Johnson, and Powdrell and thus will be relying quite a bit on young guys. I will say that if you include nickel in this position group, I fully expect Tayden Gray to be a force and to improve that aspect of the secondary.

Safety: Regressed-- Again, I'm sure that the staff will continue to add here, but they had one of the best safety tandems in the country and both players are gone. It helps to get Dowler back and one just hopes that he's 100% healthy and ready to start the season.

Overall: Push-- I think the defense will hold serve in 2025, which would be fantastic because they were unbelievably good in 2024. I'm pleased that their strengths start up front and along the line of scrimmage. I would way rather have a great front seven with some youth/weakness in the secondary than the other way around. The X factor here, to me, is how big of a step Daily and Grebe can make together. If they both level up, I think the unit as a whole could even be better than it was last year. It's rare at the FCS level to have two guys with their combination of size and movement skills. The question is whether their experience in 2024 adequately trained their instincts and will allow them to get their eyes to the right spot most of the time.

I understand your take. I think a lot of our fans and fans everywhere use this thought process which I consider a safe way to think about it. Personally I think a lot of our fans are a little behind the curve on where we are as a football program.

Like with Mellott I’m going to have an unpopular opinion on this but while I think O’Reilly and Ortt were very good players I never thought either had the speed needed to be great. The one element that was missing last year was overall team speed on defense.

I agree with TC88 that speed will increase this year. I am also very confident that our staff which were all in new roles or just new last year is going to develop players much better than last year. Sean Herrin put out a tweet about 2-3 weeks ago that spoke volumes about the program and I’m now a firm believer based on that confirming what I was already thinking.

Speed is great, decisiveness/decision making and instincts are better. Ortt had that. Lots of fast athletes make poor angles and bad decisions. Having both would be NFL talent. QB's even more so. Dave Dickenson was a great example of decision making vs. great arm and speed. I agree with you though.....team speed matters.

I think what you and others are overlooking is the player development aspect of what MSU does. I think the reason Ortt was good is because his decision making was developed by our coaches. Players that are poor decision makers often have poor coaching.

There are other safeties on this team that take horrid angles. I’m not going to name them, but they have the same coaches too.

Some players are just naturally more instinctive than others. Ed Reed was one of those. Ortt was always an instinctive player, and yes the coaching helped improve that, but some players just have it, and some don’t. It’s not all coaching.

What Ortt lacked in speed he absolutely made up for with instincts and tackling ability. I also give big props to staff for designing defenses to highlight Ortt's abilities. Better OC's would occasionally expose Ortt in coverage and shift/motion to create a matchup they liked. But typically they were only able to do it once. And no none could consistently run to Ortt's side. I'm interested to see what changes the staff makes (if any) based upon next years safeties and their strengths.

[Montanabob]

I wonder how all the great defensive players that played in the Big Sky feel about Robbie Hauck being the all time tackle leader. Little Robbie couldn’t even hold the jockstrap of most those guys. Pathetic.

I happen to know that some griz defensive players (recent ones) aren't happy about Hauck being the all time tackle leader. Everybody knows he was laughably overrated. Not saying he was terrible, but one of the best in BSC history? I'm not sure he was ever the best defensive player on his team. I'm told you can also ask his former teammates at NAU whether they thought he was one of the greats.

and with that, he adds 2 tackles out of bounds and 1 late hit to his totals.

[TomCat88]

My opinion.

Defensive End: Improved-- Grebe is a huge loss, but he also wasn't healthy for most of the season so it's not like what they're losing from 2024 is his full impact. Eiden, Crews, Solano, and Parsons are going to form a fearsome rotation.

Defensive Tackle: Improved-- The big loss here is Schmidt, but they already learned to play without him for the bulk of last season. Brott is one of the best DT's in the conference and Eckert returns next to him. Black is experienced depth and then there's a whole group of up and comers with tons of talent-- Sharbono, Marsh, Tanupo, Wiens. This group looks strong for years to come.

Linebacker: Push-- Daily and Grebe are both so talented that there's a chance this position is stronger in 2025 and given how many snaps they saw this last year it's hard to say that it will be much worse. I'm not worried about the depth with talents like Taylor, Bowles, Krahe, and Dethman on the come. They could easily add a transfer here if they're uncomfortable with the depth, but I don't think that's a "must."

Cornerback: Regressed-- I'm sure that the staff will continue to add to this position, but they're losing their top 3 guys in Woodard, Johnson, and Powdrell and thus will be relying quite a bit on young guys. I will say that if you include nickel in this position group, I fully expect Tayden Gray to be a force and to improve that aspect of the secondary.

Safety: Regressed-- Again, I'm sure that the staff will continue to add here, but they had one of the best safety tandems in the country and both players are gone. It helps to get Dowler back and one just hopes that he's 100% healthy and ready to start the season.

Overall: Push-- I think the defense will hold serve in 2025, which would be fantastic because they were unbelievably good in 2024. I'm pleased that their strengths start up front and along the line of scrimmage. I would way rather have a great front seven with some youth/weakness in the secondary than the other way around. The X factor here, to me, is how big of a step Daily and Grebe can make together. If they both level up, I think the unit as a whole could even be better than it was last year. It's rare at the FCS level to have two guys with their combination of size and movement skills. The question is whether their experience in 2024 adequately trained their instincts and will allow them to get their eyes to the right spot most of the time.

I understand your take. I think a lot of our fans and fans everywhere use this thought process which I consider a safe way to think about it. Personally I think a lot of our fans are a little behind the curve on where we are as a football program.

Like with Mellott I’m going to have an unpopular opinion on this but while I think O’Reilly and Ortt were very good players I never thought either had the speed needed to be great. The one element that was missing last year was overall team speed on defense.

I agree with TC88 that speed will increase this year. I am also very confident that our staff which were all in new roles or just new last year is going to develop players much better than last year. Sean Herrin put out a tweet about 2-3 weeks ago that spoke volumes about the program and I’m now a firm believer based on that confirming what I was already thinking.

Speed is great, decisiveness/decision making and instincts are better. Ortt had that. Lots of fast athletes make poor angles and bad decisions. Having both would be NFL talent. QB's even more so. Dave Dickenson was a great example of decision making vs. great arm and speed. I agree with you though.....team speed matters.

I think what you and others are overlooking is the player development aspect of what MSU does. I think the reason Ortt was good is because his decision making was developed by our coaches. Players that are poor decision makers often have poor coaching.

There are other safeties on this team that take horrid angles. I’m not going to name them, but they have the same coaches too.

Some players are just naturally more instinctive than others. Ed Reed was one of those. Ortt was always an instinctive player, and yes the coaching helped improve that, but some players just have it, and some don’t. It’s not all coaching.

What Ortt lacked in speed he absolutely made up for with instincts and tackling ability. I also give big props to staff for designing defenses to highlight Ortt's abilities. Better OC's would occasionally expose Ortt in coverage and shift/motion to create a matchup they liked. But typically they were only able to do it once. And no none could consistently run to Ortt's side. I'm interested to see what changes the staff makes (if any) based upon next years safeties and their strengths.

Ortt definitely had heaps of instincts and tackling skills. Over the past few years, I've become more inclined to credit coaching and player development at MSU. It's been my own experience that it's hard to change how players play. A player needs to be open-minded and be able to accept criticism. You see that in young, immature athletes. I tend to think most good FCS teams/coaches are able to see that during recruiting, but I suppose a few slip through the cracks. Those players are probably gone within a year or two.

Players that are lacking in the more instinctual aspects but open-minded are still players that you can develop even during the course of the game. Some coaches are constantly communicating with certain players right out of the huddle, but you don't see it that much at MSU or similar schools. You do, however, see coaches yelling at a specific player to "come up a couple steps" or adjust what they're doing pre-snap. If not the coach, then a unit leader on the field is doing that.

I don't look at MSU (or NDSU or SDSU) the same way I look at most programs. Most schools you can look at returning letterman or returning starters and sometimes you can tell that they're not going to be as good or they're going to be better just based on that. At MSU et al, you can kind of count on the fact that they probably have players ready to step in even in the years that they're decimated by graduation and transfers. I think SDSU was a good example of that from the 2023 season to the 2024 season. They lost 13 starters yet were probably just a regular season location from going to the title game again. SDSU played at NDSU in the regular season and barely lost. That lost caused them to have to go back there and they barely lost again. Had the first game been at home, they probably win and then host in the semis and get to the finals.

[BobcatBuiltTexan]

my take as a football junkie

DE: we'll be as good this year as last year. i would like to see more explosion off the line and more refined pass rush tech, but all in all we will be just as good...nothing to worry about here.

DT: same...we'll be just as good. we have some young guys along with the guys that were rotating in that will keep us very good....again nothing to worry about here.

LBs: imo...one of our weakness. they just aren't fast. ndsu made us run sideline to sideline and we couldn't get there. during the season all big runs came when lbs couldn't scrape over the top. we are great inside the tackles but we just aren't good in space. have to improve in that area. I think they will be better and more instinctual. I see this unit being no different than this year. We'll be alright when the rubber meets the rd.

CB: we will be young. we have a lot of young very fast very talented guys. how fast they mature will determine how good they are. mcmillan is ready to go now. if there were any hiccups in pass defense he would've played ahead of johnson. williams and boyd are very fast but very immature, they have to grow up NOW. johnson is also very talented but has to mature. they will make plays off pure ability, but will give up plays because of immaturity. could be the strongest group talent wise but also could be the weakest group mentally/maturity wise.

S: we lost two really good ones but they have already been replaced. taki, ife, gray, ross, et al. all are very talented and imo are more athletic than those that are leaving. they have to pick up the calls/scheme and i don't see a huge drop off here. I actually think they will be better than last year because i think they will be able to cover better and will be just as good in the run. could be our most reliable group. This group will make a lot of people right when they were wrong.

Overall: we will be athletically better, but many key pieces are unknown commodities. the other part to think about is complimentary football. our offense will be finding itself with a new qb and new OC, that will affect the defense early on. I think we will see more eye popping plays but our numbers won't be as good early on. As the offense finds itself and gets in a groove our defense will grow up as well and our numbers will look better as the season goes on. Statiscally we will not be as good as this year, but by the end of the year we will be a better defense than last year.

[BelligerentBobcat]

I’d agree on the speed of Grebe at LB, disagree with Daily. He’s plenty fast enough, he was just thinking too much. Should be much improved next season. Ryan Bowles appeared to have good speed too when he was in HS, I’d like to see him get some snaps.

[TomCat88]

my take as a football junkie

DE: we'll be as good this year as last year. i would like to see more explosion off the line and more refined pass rush tech, but all in all we will be just as good...nothing to worry about here.

DT: same...we'll be just as good. we have some young guys along with the guys that were rotating in that will keep us very good....again nothing to worry about here.

LBs: imo...one of our weakness. they just aren't fast. ndsu made us run sideline to sideline and we couldn't get there. during the season all big runs came when lbs couldn't scrape over the top. we are great inside the tackles but we just aren't good in space. have to improve in that area. I think they will be better and more instinctual. I see this unit being no different than this year. We'll be alright when the rubber meets the rd.

CB: we will be young. we have a lot of young very fast very talented guys. how fast they mature will determine how good they are. mcmillan is ready to go now. if there were any hiccups in pass defense he would've played ahead of johnson. williams and boyd are very fast but very immature, they have to grow up NOW. johnson is also very talented but has to mature. they will make plays off pure ability, but will give up plays because of immaturity. could be the strongest group talent wise but also could be the weakest group mentally/maturity wise.

S: we lost two really good ones but they have already been replaced. taki, ife, gray, ross, et al. all are very talented and imo are more athletic than those that are leaving. they have to pick up the calls/scheme and i don't see a huge drop off here. I actually think they will be better than last year because i think they will be able to cover better and will be just as good in the run. could be our most reliable group. This group will make a lot of people right when they were wrong.

Overall: we will be athletically better, but many key pieces are unknown commodities. the other part to think about is complimentary football. our offense will be finding itself with a new qb and new OC, that will affect the defense early on. I think we will see more eye popping plays but our numbers won't be as good early on. As the offense finds itself and gets in a groove our defense will grow up as well and our numbers will look better as the season goes on. Statiscally we will not be as good as this year, but by the end of the year we will be a better defense than last year.

The weakest areas may be LB and CB, but I think LB will be better than it was the second half of last season. I think the depth at safety could shake things up at nickel and cornerback. MSU’s pass defense really revolved around DL play. Lack of pass rush vs NDSU made that glaringly obvious.

[Lord Vigo]

I’d agree on the speed of Grebe at LB, disagree with Daily. He’s plenty fast enough, he was just thinking too much. Should be much improved next season. Ryan Bowles appeared to have good speed too when he was in HS, I’d like to see him get some snaps.

Bryce Grebe has freaky straight line speed at his size.

[BelligerentBobcat]

I’d agree on the speed of Grebe at LB, disagree with Daily. He’s plenty fast enough, he was just thinking too much. Should be much improved next season. Ryan Bowles appeared to have good speed too when he was in HS, I’d like to see him get some snaps.

Bryce Grebe has freaky straight line speed at his size.

Ehhh, I don’t see it. Maybe it’s just lack of experience and thus instincts, but Daily seemed faster to me. It’s part of why they played Daily in coverage situations more than Grebe too, I think. The lateral speed isn’t quite there, yet.

[VimSince03]

I’d agree on the speed of Grebe at LB, disagree with Daily. He’s plenty fast enough, he was just thinking too much. Should be much improved next season. Ryan Bowles appeared to have good speed too when he was in HS, I’d like to see him get some snaps.

Bryce Grebe has freaky straight line speed at his size.

Ehhh, I don’t see it. Maybe it’s just lack of experience and thus instincts, but Daily seemed faster to me. It’s part of why they played Daily in coverage situations more than Grebe too, I think. The lateral speed isn’t quite there, yet.

Daily is faster than Bryce. Bryce has better instincts than Daily which makes him better in the box and good in short range coverage. Daily gives you sideline to sideline speed (which he displayed plenty in the playoff run and 2nd half of the season) and better overall coverage because of his speed/length combo. Neil is also a better blitzer surprisingly. The only two things Neil needs to overcome is block engagement and his read/react timing. He does not take on blocks well enough to be an everydown asset in the box. Bryce needs to improve here too but he has some skill there already where Neil excels more at running and chasing. However, Bryce misses more tackles than Neil.

I think regardless they are our starting LBs in 2025 so here's to hoping they keep developing. We all should've liked what we saw as these two effectively saved our season on defense.

[catatac]

My opinion.

Defensive End: Improved-- Grebe is a huge loss, but he also wasn't healthy for most of the season so it's not like what they're losing from 2024 is his full impact. Eiden, Crews, Solano, and Parsons are going to form a fearsome rotation.

Defensive Tackle: Improved-- The big loss here is Schmidt, but they already learned to play without him for the bulk of last season. Brott is one of the best DT's in the conference and Eckert returns next to him. Black is experienced depth and then there's a whole group of up and comers with tons of talent-- Sharbono, Marsh, Tanupo, Wiens. This group looks strong for years to come.

Linebacker: Push-- Daily and Grebe are both so talented that there's a chance this position is stronger in 2025 and given how many snaps they saw this last year it's hard to say that it will be much worse. I'm not worried about the depth with talents like Taylor, Bowles, Krahe, and Dethman on the come. They could easily add a transfer here if they're uncomfortable with the depth, but I don't think that's a "must."

Cornerback: Regressed-- I'm sure that the staff will continue to add to this position, but they're losing their top 3 guys in Woodard, Johnson, and Powdrell and thus will be relying quite a bit on young guys. I will say that if you include nickel in this position group, I fully expect Tayden Gray to be a force and to improve that aspect of the secondary.

Safety: Regressed-- Again, I'm sure that the staff will continue to add here, but they had one of the best safety tandems in the country and both players are gone. It helps to get Dowler back and one just hopes that he's 100% healthy and ready to start the season.

Overall: Push-- I think the defense will hold serve in 2025, which would be fantastic because they were unbelievably good in 2024. I'm pleased that their strengths start up front and along the line of scrimmage. I would way rather have a great front seven with some youth/weakness in the secondary than the other way around. The X factor here, to me, is how big of a step Daily and Grebe can make together. If they both level up, I think the unit as a whole could even be better than it was last year. It's rare at the FCS level to have two guys with their combination of size and movement skills. The question is whether their experience in 2024 adequately trained their instincts and will allow them to get their eyes to the right spot most of the time.

I understand your take. I think a lot of our fans and fans everywhere use this thought process which I consider a safe way to think about it. Personally I think a lot of our fans are a little behind the curve on where we are as a football program.

Like with Mellott I’m going to have an unpopular opinion on this but while I think O’Reilly and Ortt were very good players I never thought either had the speed needed to be great. The one element that was missing last year was overall team speed on defense.

I agree with TC88 that speed will increase this year. I am also very confident that our staff which were all in new roles or just new last year is going to develop players much better than last year. Sean Herrin put out a tweet about 2-3 weeks ago that spoke volumes about the program and I’m now a firm believer based on that confirming what I was already thinking.

Speed is great, decisiveness/decision making and instincts are better. Ortt had that. Lots of fast athletes make poor angles and bad decisions. Having both would be NFL talent. QB's even more so. Dave Dickenson was a great example of decision making vs. great arm and speed. I agree with you though.....team speed matters.

I think what you and others are overlooking is the player development aspect of what MSU does. I think the reason Ortt was good is because his decision making was developed by our coaches. Players that are poor decision makers often have poor coaching.

There are other safeties on this team that take horrid angles. I’m not going to name them, but they have the same coaches too.

Some players are just naturally more instinctive than others. Ed Reed was one of those. Ortt was always an instinctive player, and yes the coaching helped improve that, but some players just have it, and some don’t. It’s not all coaching.

What Ortt lacked in speed he absolutely made up for with instincts and tackling ability. I also give big props to staff for designing defenses to highlight Ortt's abilities. Better OC's would occasionally expose Ortt in coverage and shift/motion to create a matchup they liked. But typically they were only able to do it once. And no none could consistently run to Ortt's side. I'm interested to see what changes the staff makes (if any) based upon next years safeties and their strengths.

Ortt definitely had heaps of instincts and tackling skills. Over the past few years, I've become more inclined to credit coaching and player development at MSU. It's been my own experience that it's hard to change how players play. A player needs to be open-minded and be able to accept criticism. You see that in young, immature athletes. I tend to think most good FCS teams/coaches are able to see that during recruiting, but I suppose a few slip through the cracks. Those players are probably gone within a year or two.

Players that are lacking in the more instinctual aspects but open-minded are still players that you can develop even during the course of the game. Some coaches are constantly communicating with certain players right out of the huddle, but you don't see it that much at MSU or similar schools. You do, however, see coaches yelling at a specific player to "come up a couple steps" or adjust what they're doing pre-snap. If not the coach, then a unit leader on the field is doing that.

I don't look at MSU (or NDSU or SDSU) the same way I look at most programs. Most schools you can look at returning letterman or returning starters and sometimes you can tell that they're not going to be as good or they're going to be better just based on that. At MSU et al, you can kind of count on the fact that they probably have players ready to step in even in the years that they're decimated by graduation and transfers. I think SDSU was a good example of that from the 2023 season to the 2024 season. They lost 13 starters yet were probably just a regular season location from going to the title game again. SDSU played at NDSU in the regular season and barely lost. That lost caused them to have to go back there and they barely lost again. Had the first game been at home, they probably win and then host in the semis and get to the finals.

Try THIRTY FOUR starters, I think it was. It was incredible to see them lose all that and still almost make it back to Frisco as you say. I really hope we prove to be a program that is at the point where we can do the same thing... and I think we just might be there.

[BobcatBuiltTexan]

I’d agree on the speed of Grebe at LB, disagree with Daily. He’s plenty fast enough, he was just thinking too much. Should be much improved next season. Ryan Bowles appeared to have good speed too when he was in HS, I’d like to see him get some snaps.

Bryce Grebe has freaky straight line speed at his size.

I think what you and I call freaky straight line speed are worlds a part...lol...

[BobcatBuiltTexan]

my take as a football junkie

DE: we'll be as good this year as last year. i would like to see more explosion off the line and more refined pass rush tech, but all in all we will be just as good...nothing to worry about here.

DT: same...we'll be just as good. we have some young guys along with the guys that were rotating in that will keep us very good....again nothing to worry about here.

LBs: imo...one of our weakness. they just aren't fast. ndsu made us run sideline to sideline and we couldn't get there. during the season all big runs came when lbs couldn't scrape over the top. we are great inside the tackles but we just aren't good in space. have to improve in that area. I think they will be better and more instinctual. I see this unit being no different than this year. We'll be alright when the rubber meets the rd.

CB: we will be young. we have a lot of young very fast very talented guys. how fast they mature will determine how good they are. mcmillan is ready to go now. if there were any hiccups in pass defense he would've played ahead of johnson. williams and boyd are very fast but very immature, they have to grow up NOW. johnson is also very talented but has to mature. they will make plays off pure ability, but will give up plays because of immaturity. could be the strongest group talent wise but also could be the weakest group mentally/maturity wise.

S: we lost two really good ones but they have already been replaced. taki, ife, gray, ross, et al. all are very talented and imo are more athletic than those that are leaving. they have to pick up the calls/scheme and i don't see a huge drop off here. I actually think they will be better than last year because i think they will be able to cover better and will be just as good in the run. could be our most reliable group. This group will make a lot of people right when they were wrong.

Overall: we will be athletically better, but many key pieces are unknown commodities. the other part to think about is complimentary football. our offense will be finding itself with a new qb and new OC, that will affect the defense early on. I think we will see more eye popping plays but our numbers won't be as good early on. As the offense finds itself and gets in a groove our defense will grow up as well and our numbers will look better as the season goes on. Statiscally we will not be as good as this year, but by the end of the year we will be a better defense than last year.

The weakest areas may be LB and CB, but I think LB will be better than it was the second half of last season. I think the depth at safety could shake things up at nickel and cornerback. MSU’s pass defense really revolved around DL play. Lack of pass rush vs NDSU made that glaringly obvious.

I don't see CB as a weakness at all, ability wise. they are the most unproven area, but not the weakest. Again yes they are young but all of them are extremely talented, they have the potential to be the strongest unit, but that all depends on how quickly as a unit they can mature. the lb unit will get better as they showed that over the course of the season, that they will work and improve. but off pure ability they are the weakest group.

[BobcatBuiltTexan]

I’d agree on the speed of Grebe at LB, disagree with Daily. He’s plenty fast enough, he was just thinking too much. Should be much improved next season. Ryan Bowles appeared to have good speed too when he was in HS, I’d like to see him get some snaps.

We will have to agree to disagree...none of them are fast at all. maybe your version of fast and mine may be different. every one of our lbers were out ran to the edges even when they got a jump on the ball. only time they were on time on the edges is when they were blitzed. in space they get lost frequently and leveraged on swing routes. they are really good pluggers and are aggressive to fill gaps from c gap to a gap, but make them have to run to the d and have any type of stretch or x blocking scheme and safeties are making the tackle cause they aren't there.

[BelligerentBobcat]

I’d agree on the speed of Grebe at LB, disagree with Daily. He’s plenty fast enough, he was just thinking too much. Should be much improved next season. Ryan Bowles appeared to have good speed too when he was in HS, I’d like to see him get some snaps.

We will have to agree to disagree...none of them are fast at all. maybe your version of fast and mine may be different. every one of our lbers were out ran to the edges even when they got a jump on the ball. only time they were on time on the edges is when they were blitzed. in space they get lost frequently and leveraged on swing routes. they are really good pluggers and are aggressive to fill gaps from c gap to a gap, but make them have to run to the d and have any type of stretch or x blocking scheme and safeties are making the tackle cause they aren't there.

Daily ran low 22’s in the 200 in HS. Obviously he’s gained some size since then, but he’s not slow.

I rarely saw him get outran to the edges unless he misread a play, which happens. I understand there are backers that are a lot faster, but I saw one of the fastest ever play for a few years here, so I’m not ignorant to what a fast LB looks like either.

[TomCat88]

my take as a football junkie

DE: we'll be as good this year as last year. i would like to see more explosion off the line and more refined pass rush tech, but all in all we will be just as good...nothing to worry about here.

DT: same...we'll be just as good. we have some young guys along with the guys that were rotating in that will keep us very good....again nothing to worry about here.

LBs: imo...one of our weakness. they just aren't fast. ndsu made us run sideline to sideline and we couldn't get there. during the season all big runs came when lbs couldn't scrape over the top. we are great inside the tackles but we just aren't good in space. have to improve in that area. I think they will be better and more instinctual. I see this unit being no different than this year. We'll be alright when the rubber meets the rd.

CB: we will be young. we have a lot of young very fast very talented guys. how fast they mature will determine how good they are. mcmillan is ready to go now. if there were any hiccups in pass defense he would've played ahead of johnson. williams and boyd are very fast but very immature, they have to grow up NOW. johnson is also very talented but has to mature. they will make plays off pure ability, but will give up plays because of immaturity. could be the strongest group talent wise but also could be the weakest group mentally/maturity wise.

S: we lost two really good ones but they have already been replaced. taki, ife, gray, ross, et al. all are very talented and imo are more athletic than those that are leaving. they have to pick up the calls/scheme and i don't see a huge drop off here. I actually think they will be better than last year because i think they will be able to cover better and will be just as good in the run. could be our most reliable group. This group will make a lot of people right when they were wrong.

Overall: we will be athletically better, but many key pieces are unknown commodities. the other part to think about is complimentary football. our offense will be finding itself with a new qb and new OC, that will affect the defense early on. I think we will see more eye popping plays but our numbers won't be as good early on. As the offense finds itself and gets in a groove our defense will grow up as well and our numbers will look better as the season goes on. Statiscally we will not be as good as this year, but by the end of the year we will be a better defense than last year.

The weakest areas may be LB and CB, but I think LB will be better than it was the second half of last season. I think the depth at safety could shake things up at nickel and cornerback. MSU’s pass defense really revolved around DL play. Lack of pass rush vs NDSU made that glaringly obvious.

I don't see CB as a weakness at all, ability wise. they are the most unproven area, but not the weakest. Again yes they are young but all of them are extremely talented, they have the potential to be the strongest unit, but that all depends on how quickly as a unit they can mature. the lb unit will get better as they showed that over the course of the season, that they will work and improve. but off pure ability they are the weakest group.

OK, misread what you were saying there. What do you think of Gray going to cornerback? I see a lot of players bunched up at safety and the likelihood of Dowler moving back to nickel makes me wonder if Gray is a possibility at CB. Of course, having both at nickel would be a great luxury as would keeping Dowler at safety.

I'm not sure what good speed is at LB. I didn't think MSU was particularly 'quick' at that position last year. The two guys coming back were mid-11 100m guys in HS as is RsF Bowles. I felt that both Grebe and Daily were faster/quicker than O'Reilly, but O'Reilly had more experience/instincts and was a very good player. I think Grebe, Daily and Bowles all have a higher ceiling. Jody Owens was a very quick LB, but I'm not sure if he was all that fast of a sprinter. I thought MSU's biggest speed problem was at safety, and I think speed is a more essential thing at that spot than LB. Will be interesting to see how the position progresses.

[Catsrgrood]

My opinion.

Defensive End: Improved-- Grebe is a huge loss, but he also wasn't healthy for most of the season so it's not like what they're losing from 2024 is his full impact. Eiden, Crews, Solano, and Parsons are going to form a fearsome rotation.

Defensive Tackle: Improved-- The big loss here is Schmidt, but they already learned to play without him for the bulk of last season. Brott is one of the best DT's in the conference and Eckert returns next to him. Black is experienced depth and then there's a whole group of up and comers with tons of talent-- Sharbono, Marsh, Tanupo, Wiens. This group looks strong for years to come.

Linebacker: Push-- Daily and Grebe are both so talented that there's a chance this position is stronger in 2025 and given how many snaps they saw this last year it's hard to say that it will be much worse. I'm not worried about the depth with talents like Taylor, Bowles, Krahe, and Dethman on the come. They could easily add a transfer here if they're uncomfortable with the depth, but I don't think that's a "must."

Cornerback: Regressed-- I'm sure that the staff will continue to add to this position, but they're losing their top 3 guys in Woodard, Johnson, and Powdrell and thus will be relying quite a bit on young guys. I will say that if you include nickel in this position group, I fully expect Tayden Gray to be a force and to improve that aspect of the secondary.

Safety: Regressed-- Again, I'm sure that the staff will continue to add here, but they had one of the best safety tandems in the country and both players are gone. It helps to get Dowler back and one just hopes that he's 100% healthy and ready to start the season.

Overall: Push-- I think the defense will hold serve in 2025, which would be fantastic because they were unbelievably good in 2024. I'm pleased that their strengths start up front and along the line of scrimmage. I would way rather have a great front seven with some youth/weakness in the secondary than the other way around. The X factor here, to me, is how big of a step Daily and Grebe can make together. If they both level up, I think the unit as a whole could even be better than it was last year. It's rare at the FCS level to have two guys with their combination of size and movement skills. The question is whether their experience in 2024 adequately trained their instincts and will allow them to get their eyes to the right spot most of the time.

I understand your take. I think a lot of our fans and fans everywhere use this thought process which I consider a safe way to think about it. Personally I think a lot of our fans are a little behind the curve on where we are as a football program.

Like with Mellott I’m going to have an unpopular opinion on this but while I think O’Reilly and Ortt were very good players I never thought either had the speed needed to be great. The one element that was missing last year was overall team speed on defense.

I agree with TC88 that speed will increase this year. I am also very confident that our staff which were all in new roles or just new last year is going to develop players much better than last year. Sean Herrin put out a tweet about 2-3 weeks ago that spoke volumes about the program and I’m now a firm believer based on that confirming what I was already thinking.

Speed is great, decisiveness/decision making and instincts are better. Ortt had that. Lots of fast athletes make poor angles and bad decisions. Having both would be NFL talent. QB's even more so. Dave Dickenson was a great example of decision making vs. great arm and speed. I agree with you though.....team speed matters.

I think what you and others are overlooking is the player development aspect of what MSU does. I think the reason Ortt was good is because his decision making was developed by our coaches. Players that are poor decision makers often have poor coaching.

There are other safeties on this team that take horrid angles. I’m not going to name them, but they have the same coaches too.

Some players are just naturally more instinctive than others. Ed Reed was one of those. Ortt was always an instinctive player, and yes the coaching helped improve that, but some players just have it, and some don’t. It’s not all coaching.

What Ortt lacked in speed he absolutely made up for with instincts and tackling ability. I also give big props to staff for designing defenses to highlight Ortt's abilities. Better OC's would occasionally expose Ortt in coverage and shift/motion to create a matchup they liked. But typically they were only able to do it once. And no none could consistently run to Ortt's side. I'm interested to see what changes the staff makes (if any) based upon next years safeties and their strengths.

Ortt definitely had heaps of instincts and tackling skills. Over the past few years, I've become more inclined to credit coaching and player development at MSU. It's been my own experience that it's hard to change how players play. A player needs to be open-minded and be able to accept criticism. You see that in young, immature athletes. I tend to think most good FCS teams/coaches are able to see that during recruiting, but I suppose a few slip through the cracks. Those players are probably gone within a year or two.

Players that are lacking in the more instinctual aspects but open-minded are still players that you can develop even during the course of the game. Some coaches are constantly communicating with certain players right out of the huddle, but you don't see it that much at MSU or similar schools. You do, however, see coaches yelling at a specific player to "come up a couple steps" or adjust what they're doing pre-snap. If not the coach, then a unit leader on the field is doing that.

I don't look at MSU (or NDSU or SDSU) the same way I look at most programs. Most schools you can look at returning letterman or returning starters and sometimes you can tell that they're not going to be as good or they're going to be better just based on that. At MSU et al, you can kind of count on the fact that they probably have players ready to step in even in the years that they're decimated by graduation and transfers. I think SDSU was a good example of that from the 2023 season to the 2024 season. They lost 13 starters yet were probably just a regular season location from going to the title game again. SDSU played at NDSU in the regular season and barely lost. That lost caused them to have to go back there and they barely lost again. Had the first game been at home, they probably win and then host in the semis and get to the finals.

Try THIRTY FOUR starters, I think it was. It was incredible to see them lose all that and still almost make it back to Frisco as you say. I really hope we prove to be a program that is at the point where we can do the same thing... and I think we just might be there.

Must have been running that fabled 7-5-5 on defense and a lot of 5 wide, 3 TE, 2 RB on offense and every one was a senior if they had 34 starters to lose in one year…

[Cataholic]

My opinion.

Defensive End: Improved-- Grebe is a huge loss, but he also wasn't healthy for most of the season so it's not like what they're losing from 2024 is his full impact. Eiden, Crews, Solano, and Parsons are going to form a fearsome rotation.

Defensive Tackle: Improved-- The big loss here is Schmidt, but they already learned to play without him for the bulk of last season. Brott is one of the best DT's in the conference and Eckert returns next to him. Black is experienced depth and then there's a whole group of up and comers with tons of talent-- Sharbono, Marsh, Tanupo, Wiens. This group looks strong for years to come.

Linebacker: Push-- Daily and Grebe are both so talented that there's a chance this position is stronger in 2025 and given how many snaps they saw this last year it's hard to say that it will be much worse. I'm not worried about the depth with talents like Taylor, Bowles, Krahe, and Dethman on the come. They could easily add a transfer here if they're uncomfortable with the depth, but I don't think that's a "must."

Cornerback: Regressed-- I'm sure that the staff will continue to add to this position, but they're losing their top 3 guys in Woodard, Johnson, and Powdrell and thus will be relying quite a bit on young guys. I will say that if you include nickel in this position group, I fully expect Tayden Gray to be a force and to improve that aspect of the secondary.

Safety: Regressed-- Again, I'm sure that the staff will continue to add here, but they had one of the best safety tandems in the country and both players are gone. It helps to get Dowler back and one just hopes that he's 100% healthy and ready to start the season.

Overall: Push-- I think the defense will hold serve in 2025, which would be fantastic because they were unbelievably good in 2024. I'm pleased that their strengths start up front and along the line of scrimmage. I would way rather have a great front seven with some youth/weakness in the secondary than the other way around. The X factor here, to me, is how big of a step Daily and Grebe can make together. If they both level up, I think the unit as a whole could even be better than it was last year. It's rare at the FCS level to have two guys with their combination of size and movement skills. The question is whether their experience in 2024 adequately trained their instincts and will allow them to get their eyes to the right spot most of the time.

I understand your take. I think a lot of our fans and fans everywhere use this thought process which I consider a safe way to think about it. Personally I think a lot of our fans are a little behind the curve on where we are as a football program.

Like with Mellott I’m going to have an unpopular opinion on this but while I think O’Reilly and Ortt were very good players I never thought either had the speed needed to be great. The one element that was missing last year was overall team speed on defense.

I agree with TC88 that speed will increase this year. I am also very confident that our staff which were all in new roles or just new last year is going to develop players much better than last year. Sean Herrin put out a tweet about 2-3 weeks ago that spoke volumes about the program and I’m now a firm believer based on that confirming what I was already thinking.

Speed is great, decisiveness/decision making and instincts are better. Ortt had that. Lots of fast athletes make poor angles and bad decisions. Having both would be NFL talent. QB's even more so. Dave Dickenson was a great example of decision making vs. great arm and speed. I agree with you though.....team speed matters.

I think what you and others are overlooking is the player development aspect of what MSU does. I think the reason Ortt was good is because his decision making was developed by our coaches. Players that are poor decision makers often have poor coaching.

There are other safeties on this team that take horrid angles. I’m not going to name them, but they have the same coaches too.

Some players are just naturally more instinctive than others. Ed Reed was one of those. Ortt was always an instinctive player, and yes the coaching helped improve that, but some players just have it, and some don’t. It’s not all coaching.

What Ortt lacked in speed he absolutely made up for with instincts and tackling ability. I also give big props to staff for designing defenses to highlight Ortt's abilities. Better OC's would occasionally expose Ortt in coverage and shift/motion to create a matchup they liked. But typically they were only able to do it once. And no none could consistently run to Ortt's side. I'm interested to see what changes the staff makes (if any) based upon next years safeties and their strengths.

Ortt definitely had heaps of instincts and tackling skills. Over the past few years, I've become more inclined to credit coaching and player development at MSU. It's been my own experience that it's hard to change how players play. A player needs to be open-minded and be able to accept criticism. You see that in young, immature athletes. I tend to think most good FCS teams/coaches are able to see that during recruiting, but I suppose a few slip through the cracks. Those players are probably gone within a year or two.

Players that are lacking in the more instinctual aspects but open-minded are still players that you can develop even during the course of the game. Some coaches are constantly communicating with certain players right out of the huddle, but you don't see it that much at MSU or similar schools. You do, however, see coaches yelling at a specific player to "come up a couple steps" or adjust what they're doing pre-snap. If not the coach, then a unit leader on the field is doing that.

I don't look at MSU (or NDSU or SDSU) the same way I look at most programs. Most schools you can look at returning letterman or returning starters and sometimes you can tell that they're not going to be as good or they're going to be better just based on that. At MSU et al, you can kind of count on the fact that they probably have players ready to step in even in the years that they're decimated by graduation and transfers. I think SDSU was a good example of that from the 2023 season to the 2024 season. They lost 13 starters yet were probably just a regular season location from going to the title game again. SDSU played at NDSU in the regular season and barely lost. That lost caused them to have to go back there and they barely lost again. Had the first game been at home, they probably win and then host in the semis and get to the finals.

Try THIRTY FOUR starters, I think it was. It was incredible to see them lose all that and still almost make it back to Frisco as you say. I really hope we prove to be a program that is at the point where we can do the same thing... and I think we just might be there.

Must have been running that fabled 7-5-5 on defense and a lot of 5 wide, 3 TE, 2 RB on offense and every one was a senior if they had 34 starters to lose in one year…

That is funny!! Maybe he meant their track team lost 34 starters?

[catscat]

My opinion.

Defensive End: Improved-- Grebe is a huge loss, but he also wasn't healthy for most of the season so it's not like what they're losing from 2024 is his full impact. Eiden, Crews, Solano, and Parsons are going to form a fearsome rotation.

Defensive Tackle: Improved-- The big loss here is Schmidt, but they already learned to play without him for the bulk of last season. Brott is one of the best DT's in the conference and Eckert returns next to him. Black is experienced depth and then there's a whole group of up and comers with tons of talent-- Sharbono, Marsh, Tanupo, Wiens. This group looks strong for years to come.

Linebacker: Push-- Daily and Grebe are both so talented that there's a chance this position is stronger in 2025 and given how many snaps they saw this last year it's hard to say that it will be much worse. I'm not worried about the depth with talents like Taylor, Bowles, Krahe, and Dethman on the come. They could easily add a transfer here if they're uncomfortable with the depth, but I don't think that's a "must."

Cornerback: Regressed-- I'm sure that the staff will continue to add to this position, but they're losing their top 3 guys in Woodard, Johnson, and Powdrell and thus will be relying quite a bit on young guys. I will say that if you include nickel in this position group, I fully expect Tayden Gray to be a force and to improve that aspect of the secondary.

Safety: Regressed-- Again, I'm sure that the staff will continue to add here, but they had one of the best safety tandems in the country and both players are gone. It helps to get Dowler back and one just hopes that he's 100% healthy and ready to start the season.

Overall: Push-- I think the defense will hold serve in 2025, which would be fantastic because they were unbelievably good in 2024. I'm pleased that their strengths start up front and along the line of scrimmage. I would way rather have a great front seven with some youth/weakness in the secondary than the other way around. The X factor here, to me, is how big of a step Daily and Grebe can make together. If they both level up, I think the unit as a whole could even be better than it was last year. It's rare at the FCS level to have two guys with their combination of size and movement skills. The question is whether their experience in 2024 adequately trained their instincts and will allow them to get their eyes to the right spot most of the time.

I understand your take. I think a lot of our fans and fans everywhere use this thought process which I consider a safe way to think about it. Personally I think a lot of our fans are a little behind the curve on where we are as a football program.

Like with Mellott I’m going to have an unpopular opinion on this but while I think O’Reilly and Ortt were very good players I never thought either had the speed needed to be great. The one element that was missing last year was overall team speed on defense.

I agree with TC88 that speed will increase this year. I am also very confident that our staff which were all in new roles or just new last year is going to develop players much better than last year. Sean Herrin put out a tweet about 2-3 weeks ago that spoke volumes about the program and I’m now a firm believer based on that confirming what I was already thinking.

Speed is great, decisiveness/decision making and instincts are better. Ortt had that. Lots of fast athletes make poor angles and bad decisions. Having both would be NFL talent. QB's even more so. Dave Dickenson was a great example of decision making vs. great arm and speed. I agree with you though.....team speed matters.

I think what you and others are overlooking is the player development aspect of what MSU does. I think the reason Ortt was good is because his decision making was developed by our coaches. Players that are poor decision makers often have poor coaching.

There are other safeties on this team that take horrid angles. I’m not going to name them, but they have the same coaches too.

Some players are just naturally more instinctive than others. Ed Reed was one of those. Ortt was always an instinctive player, and yes the coaching helped improve that, but some players just have it, and some don’t. It’s not all coaching.

What Ortt lacked in speed he absolutely made up for with instincts and tackling ability. I also give big props to staff for designing defenses to highlight Ortt's abilities. Better OC's would occasionally expose Ortt in coverage and shift/motion to create a matchup they liked. But typically they were only able to do it once. And no none could consistently run to Ortt's side. I'm interested to see what changes the staff makes (if any) based upon next years safeties and their strengths.

Ortt definitely had heaps of instincts and tackling skills. Over the past few years, I've become more inclined to credit coaching and player development at MSU. It's been my own experience that it's hard to change how players play. A player needs to be open-minded and be able to accept criticism. You see that in young, immature athletes. I tend to think most good FCS teams/coaches are able to see that during recruiting, but I suppose a few slip through the cracks. Those players are probably gone within a year or two.

Players that are lacking in the more instinctual aspects but open-minded are still players that you can develop even during the course of the game. Some coaches are constantly communicating with certain players right out of the huddle, but you don't see it that much at MSU or similar schools. You do, however, see coaches yelling at a specific player to "come up a couple steps" or adjust what they're doing pre-snap. If not the coach, then a unit leader on the field is doing that.

I don't look at MSU (or NDSU or SDSU) the same way I look at most programs. Most schools you can look at returning letterman or returning starters and sometimes you can tell that they're not going to be as good or they're going to be better just based on that. At MSU et al, you can kind of count on the fact that they probably have players ready to step in even in the years that they're decimated by graduation and transfers. I think SDSU was a good example of that from the 2023 season to the 2024 season. They lost 13 starters yet were probably just a regular season location from going to the title game again. SDSU played at NDSU in the regular season and barely lost. That lost caused them to have to go back there and they barely lost again. Had the first game been at home, they probably win and then host in the semis and get to the finals.

Try THIRTY FOUR starters, I think it was. It was incredible to see them lose all that and still almost make it back to Frisco as you say. I really hope we prove to be a program that is at the point where we can do the same thing... and I think we just might be there.

Must have been running that fabled 7-5-5 on defense and a lot of 5 wide, 3 TE, 2 RB on offense and every one was a senior if they had 34 starters to lose in one year…

11 offense, 11 defense, 8 special teams, punter, kicker, holder and long snapper.