They had some key injuries (Lapuaho, for example), plugged in some newcomers (Eide, Norman, Shoaf), and they ended up doing fairly well despite. I had heard early on about Empey being concerned with the raw materials he had to work with, but I think he got the most out of them, to the point that as the season wore on, they got better and better, and were pretty decent towards the end.

Now, this season, we have Koroma at center, and he's excellent. We have a couple of serviceable to potentially good backups in Charmbers and Norman. At this point, we don't know how Lapuaho's recovery is going, but if he is able to come back, he has NFL potential. Without him, at RT we have Longson, and he looks to be a really good one. At RG we have either Hoyt or Kanuch. I like Kanuch a lot. At LG, we have Norman, who played well last year. And at LT Shoaf, who was just plain awesome. I think Shoaf is putting on weight, and that should help him even more. More importantly, we have excellent depth, like we haven't had recently, across the line. Plus, coaches have really been focusing on both lines, so that is more reason for optimism. Adding a guy like James Empey (can play this year), Hoge (next year) only adds to the optimism.

I think the best thing we have going is Empey (the coach) gets a lot out of his players. His second year running things has me pretty excited. Tanner is going to have the time he needs to make the throws. And he can make those throws. I like Tanner out of the pocket, but I like him even more with time to throw.