"Expectations" seem to be a pretty common topic on the board right now. What should our honest expectations be for next season? I'm very optimistic we should have another great year and should be a contender once again.

Offensively, not sure we could improve much as far as putting up points. Thoughts?

Defensively, we lose some key players that have been around. We need to drastically improve in areas on D, what can we honestly expect and who can fill those holes?

If Rourke stays healthy, I think we improve. He is the difference in my opinion. He makes everybody else better on the offense.

I think our offense will improve. Which is fortunate since the defense will have to replace our entire front 7 with the exception of Croutch. I also fortunately expect the secondary to improve. With the staff changes at NIU, the loss of starters at Toledo, and the lack of readiness at WMU, I expect the MACC to once again be within reach. Can our extremely young but talented defense come together in time to grasp it? I'm excited to find out.

I really expect the same type of season as this year, with perhaps some key learnings from the Akron game last year that hopefully impact the way they play this upcoming season (not turning it over in key situations). My predictions:

-Hot non-conference start
-Head-scratching MAC loss
-Some injury that creates team havoc
-In a tight race for MAC East Champ
-Berth in MAC Championship game
-Narrow loss
-Bowl bid
-Bowl win
-Fan complaints about not getting to the next level

Our offensive line will be the best we've had here if everyone is healthy. If Ball returns we have a receiving corp. of Meyer, Ball, Papi and Odom which is athletic and has experience. Tight end is a question but Rourke will only get better and if Irons comes back solid we keep our depth at RB with AJ and Irons taking Dorian's spot.

Defensively, we will miss those D-linemen but some guys like Payne really stepped up this year in the time they got. I love Croutch as a leader and we'll struggle at LB but DB's -- what a group! Add Mayne Williams who was going to start until his injury and it will be a terrorizing group.

Oh..and we have the best kicker and punter tandem in the league and maybe in the nation.

One slip up in the MAC...and we finally get over that hump! MAC champions and Frank retires.

I think our offence will be ELITE next year. We were great this year just turned the ball over a little too much. We return most of our line, AJ, Irons, and Ross gives us a great RB rotation. We have Rourke back at QB, he's the best QB we have had in year. Also have good depth with Maxwell. We lose both TE's which may hurt blocking some, but isn't a huge loss. We didn't use them that much passing. In the pass game is where I think we take a big step up. We return Papi, Meyers, Odom at WR. We also return Elijah Ball who was receiving a ton of hype in the preseason before his injury. If he can return to himself and stay healthy that gives us a big target receiver that we were missing last year. If Rourke cuts down on turnovers I don't see any team being able to stop us offensively.

Defensively is where I get worried. After being great in 2016 we took a step back in 2017. We lose a lot of good pieces on our front 7 just like we did last year. This makes me wonder will we see another step back this year, we need new guys to step up and become leaders of that unit. The good news is that our young secondary returns and we should see some sort of improvement there.

If we can limit turnovers on offence and be about as good as we were last year on defense I don't see any reason why we shouldn't be expecting a MACC this year. Really we could have had it last year with our elite offence, but our turnovers killed us. I think this team will be very similar to last years, Great offence, average defense, just need to cut out turnovers.

Be fun to watch. Win 8+ games. Hopefully play in MACC game. Hopefully win MACC. Hopefully play in bowl game. Hopefully win. Cut down on number of high-turnover games. Beat Miami.

Not many teams in college football have as few "questions" on offense as we do. We return our leading passer (Rourke), leading rusher (Ouellette) and leading receiver (Papi White) from last season. If that wasn't enough, we also get back Malik Irons (HB) from suspension and Elijah Ball (WR) from injury. Those two were both expected to contribute heavily last year until we lost them for the season. Our offensive line was great this past season and we return most of it.

We were 9th in the nation in points per game last year. That has to be an OHIO record, right? I agree with posters above... I'm extremely confident we will move the ball and score regularly. If Rourke progresses even a little, our offense is going to put up historic numbers. The key is going to be limiting mistakes. We had four games last season where we lost the turnover battle by 2 or more. Those were the four games we lost.

...

Defense is a different story. Even in some of our wins, we got scored on quite a bit and we have questions at both defensive line and linebacker. We actually were pretty good against stopping the run last year but it didn't matter with all the yards given up in the passing game. Going back to the turnover differential, equally important to limiting turnovers on offense is forcing more turnovers on defense. We forced a total of ONE turnover in our four loses. We didn't have any takeaways in our last three games of the season.

I would be OK with not being quite as good against the run this season IF our front 7 is better at pressuring the opposing QB. Hopefully with Hagan back our secondary can create more turnovers this season. As a freshman Hagan had 5 forced fumbles and 3 interception. This year 0 forced fumbles and just 1 interception.

I think we will be scoring enough that teams won't be able to settle with just running the ball against us this year. I could see us having a lot of "shoot-out" type games. Our schedule isn't a killer. Win. Win. Win.

+1
Ohio will win any game where they don't turn it over excessively.

As far as DL, they have a lot of recruits from a few years ago that looked good, plus they brought in two JUCO DTs. At LB, has Collins ever had a bad group since he's been here? That's one of the positions I never worry about. I think the defense will be satisfactory.

Ohio will win the MACC next year. I thought Ohio would get to Detroit in 2016 to face WMU and in 2017 to face Toledo with good chances to win both. Ohio was 3 points short and about 30 yards away from beating a ranked and undefeated WMU team, and was a loss to Akron away from a rematch vs a Toledo team that Ohio destroyed several weeks prior. Next year Ohio will get to Detroit and beat whoever it faces in the West. Toledo was clearly the West’s best team and was no match for Ohio. Ohio will be the best team in the MAC next year and will prove it by winning the title. You can book it.

I think we all know that you can't book anything. ever.