re: Outside of the SEC...

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I have a feeling Notre Dame will be legit this year. I actually think Kelly is a good coach and wants to build an SEC elite type of program there.

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We should be very good on offense. For a guy who was known as an offensive guru before he got here, his offenses have sucked arse. He hasn't had an offense ranked in the top thirty yet. Very, very poor quarterback play has had much to do with it, but he has basically farted away what should have been good offenses with guys like Michael Floyd, Tyler Eifert, Zach Martin (all first round guys), Troy Niklas (2nd round), Theo Riddick, Cierre Wood, and a fair amount of other NFL caliber players. If he doesn't produce a good offense this year with Golson back, what should be a very good OL, and a nice set of receivers and runningbacks, then he just sucks.

We have some holes to fill on defense. We'll be excellent on the edges at all three levels, but we have some big questions at DT, MLB, and safety.

Kelly has recruited pretty well (about on the level of Auburn or UGA since he has been at ND), so the baseline talent has been elevated, but he hasn't produced any truly outstanding teams - especially on offense - yet. He's an excellent program manager and developer of talent (hence the eight draft picks a few months ago), but he is a mediocre tactician and doesn't run fluid schemes.

We also have a pretty difficult schedule this year (at FSU, at USC - whom I think could be very good this year, Stanford, Louisville, at Arizona State, Michigan), so who really knows.