Second, I will take OU and UT’s linebackers hands down over CU’s.

Cody looked like crap from game four on because that is when you got to the decent teams of the schedule. He is a midget with a weak arm and the offense faired better with the other quarterback.

“Colorado lost 80% of its tackles from last year” – since when is that relevant? Colorado has linebacker quality and depth to rival anyone in the conference, and had the best passing D in the conference last year. Pass rush is the only question, but they have two young studs on the D Line who could have an impact right away.

But that’s okay. Let them sneak up on you. Colorado to win the North in 2009 – quietly.

CU lost 80% of it’s total tackles to graduation from last year. Where are they going to replace that? Cody Hawkins freezes like a deer in the headlights when he gets a decent pass rush coming at him. He better pray that Mrs. Scott’s boy is better than his 1 carry for minus 3 yards that he had in last years final game or he is going to be road kill this year. Most of CU’s offensive line is still rehabbing from one surgery or another. CU doesn’t have any D1-AA teams on it’s schedule this year. So that’s a plus since those teams tend to make life miserable for CU. I’m not convinced that hawkins the elder is a good enough game day coach to consistently beats teams with equal or better talent.

I’d have to vote with the people that say MU is not at a point where it just reloads the talent it lost to graduation and early NFL paychecks. Merriweather is a very good linebacker but the whole defense is going to have to adjust to running a 4-3 instead of that 4-2-5 it had played. I don’t think the north is going to be all that good again this year but I do think it will be NU or KU that wins what should be a weekly dogfight.

I understand the reticence to put Mizzou ahead of KU and Nebraska, but Colorado? Really?

Mizzou’s defense this year will be more talented overall than last year. For all the plaudits William Moore received, he was pretty awful (in pass coverage) last year. Hood was a blue collar worker in the trenches who benefited HUGELY by the vast draft defections on the d-line last year. By the end of the year, Kenji Jackson was the 3rd best player on the defense, and Brian Coulter was arguably the best defensive end. Sean Weatherspoon was far and away the best player on that side of the ball. The defensive secondary has much better athletes overall, whether it gels or not is an open question, but I’m more optimistic about this secondary than I have been about any in 10 years.

Parlin, you are seriously citing to total defense? Total offense and defense are two of the most meaningless stats around. A very large part of Nebraska’s success last year was an incredible opponent’s third down conversion percentage. First in the league (conversely, Mizzou’s were awful). Of course, against ranked opponents, NU was 9th in the league. Those numbers tend to jump around a bunch (NU was dead last the year before, but 3rd in 2007), I would be very, very surprised if Nebraska repeates its 33% conversion rate. That screams fluke.

I do expect the Tigers to have some fall out, I think an 8.2 – 3.8 season would be the weighted mean if you could play it a million times. I’m concerned about the receivers, but there are enough athletes to make the spread work.

There seems to be a perception from those outside the program that Missouri’s ascent over the past 2 years was based solely on Maclin, Coffman, Daniel, William Moore, Sulak and Ziggy Hood and now that they are gone, the program is back to where it was 3 years ago. First, even if that is true, from 2004 – 2006, Mizzou was one win away from playing in the Big 12 championship game. Even with full regression, based on the schedule and the flawed division, Mizzou should be in the hunt until the very end. Second, very simply put, the overall talent level of this team is way beyond that of the 2004 – 2006 squads. But no amount of talking about it is going to prove things one way or another, so as Vasherized points out, we’ll find out come Labor Day weekend.

Enjoy the debate, and once we get things moving over at AT, we’ll let everyone know so you can move your mocking over there. Look forward to seeing some of you UT guys in CoMo this year, come to Harpo’s top deck and we’ll buy you a round.

I was not impressed. And neither was Will.

Who specifically replaces them? Jared Perry? Jerrell Jackson? Do you really expect Andrew Jones to step in for Coffman without any drop off? I don’t get how these assumptions equate to automatic production.

Even guys like Daniel, Sulak, and Moore who made NFL rosters leave a big gap because none of the guys behind them have much experience.

The reason Tiger fans should be confident is the schedule and weak division but I’m seeing people who know the team well like GC expecting the Tigers to suffer no fall out from losing half their starters. I guess they’ll find out pretty quickly in the season opener against a potent Illini offense.

Gabbert should turn out to be a great college QB given his size and pedigree. He has a great OL (Hoch is a first round pick) and a decent RB in Washington but who the fuck is he throwing the ball to?

If all the talent on last year’s D couldn’t do shit against the legitimate offenses it faced in Texas and OU, I expect this year’s squad to suffer in comparison against merely decent offenses like CU and KU. I like Aldon Smith and Kenji Jackson. Who else is going to step up?

The Huskers will win a lot of games with ugly boxscores of 24 -10, but they’ll still win more games than anybody else in the North.

Mizzou losing their DC may be positive.