On offense, success will be measured by the progress of QB Dakota Conwell. Conwell played well last year but at times you could tell that it was his first year back under center after two years as a LB at Arizona. Little rusty and thinking a little too much. By all accounts, his improvement between the end of last season and this coming one will be pretty dramatic. Question will be, who does he throw or handoff to when he’s not running the ball himself?
RB – WLU will return their top two RB’s from last season in Isiah Moody and Jeremiah Ortiz which sounds good on paper until you consider they combined for 850 rushing yards. To be successful, either these two need to combine for 1100 yards or WLU needs to develop a third RB option who can pitch in about 400 yards. My money is on freshman Ronald Jefferson as a bruising change of pace to the more shifty Moody and Ortiz.
Receiver – Replacing Dylan Potts is going to be a tall order. But WLU does return some quality at the WR position in Anton McCallum and Daree Goodwin. McCallum is a speed merchant who can stretch the defense while Goodwin is more of a flex TE type who will beat safeties with size and athletic ability. Beyond those two let’s say the rest of the receiving corp is “unproven.” 6’5″ Max Kapron will probably get a chance to prove he belongs in the starting lineup and he gives WLU something they haven’t had recently but used very effectively in the past…a tall fast wide out. He showed some flashes of ability in limited action last year.
OL could be a strength of the Toppers offense this coming year and having a quality OL is definitely a good place to start. In Turley, McCullough, Earnest, Goff and Fonoti, they return five players with a ton of starting time last year on a line that was pretty solid. Good young depth also which is always a problem at the DII level.
Defensively, WLU looks to be solid.
Along the DL they return quite a few players with a lot of game experience including Darnell Vickers, Quinton Sifford and Gavin Hutchinson. WLU has always done “DL by committee” and this year will be no different. No one player is going to have eye poping individual stats but at the end of the day, they will be a very solid unit.
DB – Replacing Richetti and Woods will be very tough but the pain will be eased by the two D1 DB’s WLU brought in in Solomon Dixon and Parish McKnight. Look for them to team up with head knocker Andrew Faraimo and returning starters Baldwin and Young to form a pretty formidable “back 5”
LB – By default, the weakest unit. But when I say weak what I mean is not flashy. Returning starter Marcus Schumacher is solid and effective. Second LB spot could flip back and forth between Garrett Vulcano and the season opener starter from two years ago Jed Fue. Wild card is freshman Joey Ierulli. I like him a lot and he could push even though he is a true freshman.
Special teams could be a weakness that could bite us in close games. We lose our All-Region punter, apparently our starting kicker and our kickoff specialist as well. That is going to be a problem. We return Zach Musilli who was 23-28 on XP’s so we at least have someone who can kick short FG’s pretty well…yet to see how “big” his leg is. At Punter we do have a Yocum in camp…Unfortunately it is untried true freshman Patrick Yocum and not big bro Grif! In the return game we will probably have a new guy in Osman Kargbo (redshirted last season). This cat can F L Y so it should be interesting. If the blockers can create lanes for him, he has the speed to take it to the house every time he touches the ball.
I see the prospects as pretty good. Do I think they will win the MEC? No. But I think they will be in the hunt. There is a clear separation between the top two teams and the “second tier” (which includes WLU). Some lucky bounces for WLU or some bad bounces for the top two and WLU could vault the gap. I see them as a 7 to 8 win team headed into the season. Team will be incrementally better than they were last year which should result in a couple of more wins…provided the kicking game doesn’t prove to be a disaster.
