Which is what makes Dino's remarks so silly. He says we are close. Close to being what? 52 FBS teams have played a game this year. We are getting 2.85 ypp. Improving that by 2 ypp, which is a huge jump, would only get us to 42nd. That is still bad.
If people prefer total yards we are at 186.5 per game. If we doubled that per game (373 ypg) we would still only be 36th out of 52 teams. So yes, doubling our yardage output per game would have us still below average. That is have far we have to go to become mediocre.
In fairness, both teams that we played are ranked, and I can see a world where adding 2 starting running backs and getting an NCAA waiver for a former starting OL transfer from UF might make make a tangible and positive impact on the running game, which could also help the passing game (esp. the added lineman).
We also do have some pretty big/tall WR’s. I’m not sure that any are ready to contribute yet, but having one of them step up might also tangibly open up the passing game.
All of those players are on the roster and will be available next year (and truthfully “should“ have been available this year). The magnitude of the combined effect of the above is very admittedly unknown to me, but my gut says that it would move us to “just” kind of bad on offense - especially if we start playing average teams.
Our defense isn’t elite, but it’s good enough to win games with a merely “kind of bad“ offense. Add in an unknown commodity or two (transfer, breakout freshman, etc.), and I can see a world where kind of bad turns into pretty good. Will it happen? Who knows? But I can see where Dino is coming from when he says we’re not far off.
The guy I wanted to hire was Eddie O. He wanted this job (before LSU became his), and defenses are 100 proof, and his ability to recruit is the stuff of legends. Even if he failed, he’d leave the next guy talent to work with. But the Eddie ship has sailed and we got Dino. I’m personally not ready to write him off as a loss just yet. His defense is there, and I can at least envision of world where we’re close to having the right pieces on offense. He better win next year, but at least rosters can change quickly in college, so he has a shot to make the pieces appear.
