Assuming that Shireffs shows the improvement you would expect a QB to show in his second year as a starter (and I had no question about that until Diaco talked about him being in a competition this week), the #s 1 through 5 keys to this season is the OL. I think at all the skill positions everyone would look better if we just got our OL play up to conference average this year. Last year was better than the year before, but still towards the bottom of the AAC.
I think the fact that Vachery and Rutherford couldn't crack the starting lineup gives me hope that there will be a big step forward this year, but hope and achievement are two different things. Let's see if we can blow Maine off the line of scrimmage, like we used to do against I-A opponents until the Sunshine Boys ruined everything.
One more point. I don't want to play Rutherford this year merely on placements and when the second string OL is in. If he's not going to really play a material amount from scrimmage, let the damn kid redshirt and have two years as a starter when Thor is gone. The fact that we've spent two years of his career to do very little is very frustrating (although I know that, in fairness, our inability to redshirt most of an incoming class may just be the incredible lack of depth and talent HCBD inherited, but eventually redshirts have to be preserved unless we are really using the player to make more than a very minor contribution).
