Punished in polls for a 19 point win.

[tboyer]

Did you feel this way at end of last season? A team just missing the playoffs has "a ways to go"? It is virtually the same team.

It should actually be a very different team because of the experience, because a lot of the team was 2nd year players who are now third year players, and because the OL finally has depth and experience.

They should be significantly better at some things this year - and they will be.

Punt returns and punt coverage - check. Secondary -- looks really good so far.

But where I hoped to see a big leap this year is along the LOS. I just didn't see enough Saturday. But it's early.

 

[PSU_Nut]

But if they were unranked, it wouldn't have.

Right but let's put it this way. If they didn't have a preseason poll it still would have been an impressive win. You can not publish a poll but people are still going to have a perception on who good or not.

 

[HazletonLion]

My suggestion is to start the season polls the way you finished, there is nothing to suggest that any team improved that much since the off season such as Notre Dame or Ohio State , or got worse such as Clemson.
It's like NASCAR where Alabama and Ohio St. get poll ( or pole ) position every year.

 

[BisbeeMike]

It should actually be a very different team because of the experience, because a lot of the team was 2nd year players who are now third year players, and because the OL finally has depth and experience.

They should be significantly better at some things this year - and they will be.

Punt returns and punt coverage - check. Secondary -- looks really good so far.

But where I hoped to see a big leap this year is along the LOS. I just didn't see enough Saturday. But it's early.

You didn't see enough yesterday because Brian O'Neill, Alex Officer, and Alex Bookser are sure fire NFL offensive linemen, and NOBODY is going to stuff them at the line of scrimmage this year. I truly hope you watch the Pitt-Oklahoma State game this week so you can see that it was not our D line that was the problem: They have THREE NFL O LINEMEN for pete's sake.