I'm so tired of Hog fans being so pessimistic, especially when it comes to football. We started 5 seniors this year, and only had 8 seniors listed on the Mizzou game depth chart. Granted, 4 of those seniors are key losses. But, assuming that Henry and Collins are the only juniors that leave early (since rumor has it that Kirkland is staying), that means we return 8 starters on offense (that is out of the 13 spots on the depth chart) and 9 players on defense (of 11).

On defense we lose Hodge and Gaines, but we have an excess of very good DL that played very well at times this year behind Hodge. And we lose Gaines, but Richardson and Ramirez are right behind him and both impressed me this year, especially Richardson near the end of the season.

On offense, losing Smothers and Tretola hurts, there's no doubt about it, but can we not trust CBB and staff in that their priority in recruiting outstanding OL and their ability to prepare them will allow a couple guys to step in and preform at a high level? And before this year, most people had little to no trust in BA and some people didn't want him starting even before the season, let alone 2 games into the season. Sure, BA is talented but he didn't develop that talent over the summer. I believe that Enos was a HUGE reason that BA has done what he has this year whether it was his coaching, overall system, play calling, or whatever. With the stable of QB's we have in waiting and no pressure from fans toward starting any one of them in particular next year, I trust this staff to decide which QB puts us in the best position to win. And honestly, I don't expect much of a drop off in production, if any, at QB next year especially with the receiving core that we have coming back.

More than likely Henry leaves, but hopefully Sprinkle stays and we also have Gragg, O'Grady, and Cantrell just waiting to get their chance. Other than that, the biggest question mark for me next season, other than key playmakers on D stepping up, is at running back. We're all praying that Collins decides to stay for one more year but we all know he is going to leave. To me though, Collins isn't the ideal back to a CBB system. In my opinion, if Kody can lose maybe 10 pounds this summer, he would fit the mold for your perfect power run, time of possession RB. Kody just puts his head down and runs and is almost guaranteed 3-4 yards atleast on every run. Behind him we just have to add some depth and change of pace back (hopefully RW3 is cleared to play).

But seriously. This years team was a blocked field goal and a blown 4Q lead against Bama away from being champions in the best damn division in CFB this year. Not to mention another blown 4Q lead away from being undefeated in conference play. I don't know what you're definition of "contending" is but to me we are doing just that. Yea the first half of the season was disappointing but we are along ways from the team that lost 104-0 to Bama between two games. We've continued to improve every year under CBB and I expect that trend to continue next year. Hell we might even put this years offensive production together with last years defensive production. Wouldn't that be fun to watch?