don't care who we get in the portal...we're not going to be anywhere close next year on defense to where we were this year.
I can't disagree enough. We've gotten significantly better every single year under BV, and at a certain point that trend won't continue, but we are still not at BV Clemson's level. We are getting close, but there is still a clear gap we haven't closed.
My prediction is that it's even better next year. I definitely COULD be wrong. Maybe we don't take another step, or perhaps even take a small step back, but "not going to be anywhere close" is silly message board hyperbole.
you don't lose williams/halton/lewis/heineke/mckinzie/daniels/rmt/jones jr/rsj....and stay the same or get better.
We spent most of the year without our top CB, to the point we started a true freshman that wasn't that highly recruited. Guillory was a 3-star and ranked around 400th in the country. And we have our defense running at such a level that we were fine.
RMT barely even played in our biggest wins, but again, we were fine. We have depth out the anus and brought in NFL caliber pass rushers that made an immediate impact. He's certainly a great player, but he barely even played in most of our key wins this year, so it's not truly a loss compared to what we put on the field this past year.
We started a walk-on LB that has 0% chance of getting drafted and didn't even get mop-up duties previous years. And were completely fine, because that's how good we are at developing LBs. I think Heinecke gets another year, but not even slightly worried if he doesn't. Kobie got processed, so that's not a loss.
Daniels was great for us, but that was a plug and play portal addition that we can replicate. Every talented LB/S in the country hoping to improve their draft stock will be begging for that role. It's not like we spent years developing him.
As for the DTs, Stone and Jackson would have been the starters regardless, and might be the best duo in the country. Halton and Damonic were great for us, but Bates won't have a problem adding depth/backups at DT. We are loaded on the DL.
the biggest concern is defense
Dude.