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Message: [QUOTE="sutomcat, post: 3025030, member: 27"] Connelly’s model is fine. It is not unlike Phil Steele’s and I woouldn’t be surprised if one borrowed some concepts from the other. No question the turnover margin was unusually high. But to me, you need to look at the causes for it. Was it mere chance? I don’t think so. Most of the margin was based on the high number of turnovers the opposition had against Syracuse last season. I think watching the games, a big cause was the very strong pass rush the Syracuse defense was able to muster. back. Strong QB pressure drives turnovers, be it from QBs getting the ball knocked out as they get hit or QBs throwing under heavy pressure, making dangerous, interception prone throws they would never try under ordinary circumstances. To have a strong pass rush, you ideally need very good DEs, you need a secondary that is good enough to make the QB wait a bit for a receiver to get open and you need a strong offense, that puts points on the board and puts pressure on the opposing offense to score, preferably quickly. We have 3 DEs returning who consistently had exceptional numbers for sacks and QB pressures. The entire secondary is back. And the SU offense looks to be good, maybe very good and possibly great. I think it is reasonable to expect performance similar to 2018. The RBs and WRs are going to be better, the OL should be around the same level and the QB performance should also be around the same level. We will definitely see the rushing yards and rushing TDs go down at B but completion percentage, yards per throw and probably interception completion should be better. I think the turnovers on offense will be a little lower. The turnovers the defense produces will probably be a little lower too, but I expect the margin to be in SU’s favor. The 2 areas of risk are how Devito does making decisions and throwing the ball, and how well the defense does stopping the run. I don’t think we are going to see a lot of teams hurting us passing the ball...most are going to be afraid to throw it, especially on slow developing plays down the field. [/QUOTE]

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