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For the first time, in a long time Buffalo’s question marks going into the season are in the trenches. For the entirety of Lance Leipold coaching tenure at Buffalo the unit was strong and very deep. Every time a key player graduated another seemed to step into the role and up the level of play even higher.
A lot of that talent left with Leipold, or went elsewhere after Lance bolted to Kansas.
But, what’s left was largely recruited and trained up by Leipold, plus coach Linguist has pulled in some talent from the transfer portal. But the chemistry is the question.
I think our skill positions will be fine, especially on offense, but will Buffalo be able to win the battles down low which have been key to the teams success.
Here’s the depth chart, there are a lot of new names.
Offense | 1 | 2 | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
WR | Quian Williams | Marlyn Johnson | EMU Transfer |
LT | Jake Fuzak | Trevor Cahill | Moving over from RT |
LG | Jake Klenk | Nolan Gorczyka 6 | |
C | Bence Polgar | Jack Hasz | |
RG | Alain Schaerer | Tyler Doty | |
RT | Gabe Wallace | Deondre Doiron | |
TE | Jake Molinich | Tyler Stephens | |
QB | Kyle Vantrease | Matt Myers | |
RB | Kevin Marks | Ron Cook | |
WR | Khamran Laborn | Jamari Gassett | Garden City Transfer |
WR | Dominic Johnson | Bernard Porter | |
Defense | |||
DE | Max Michel | C.J. Bazille | |
NG | Josh Rogers | Daymond Williams | Transfer from T A&M |
DT | George Wolo | Daishon Folsom | |
DE | Taylor Riggins | Eric Black | |
LB | Kadofi Wright | Tim Terry | |
LB | James Patterson | Shaun Dolac | |
LB | Fabian Weitz | Caleb Tate | |
CB | Ja'Marcus Ingram | Aapri Washington | Trensfer from Texas Tech |
FS | E.J. Brown | Cory Gross | Transfer from C. Iowa |
SS | Dylan Powell | Marcus Fuqua | |
CB | Mark Davis | Isaiah King | |
S.T. | |||
P | Evan Finegan | Jackson Baltar | |
PK | Alex McNulty | Jackson Baltar | |
LS | Jeremiah Riordan | Evan Davis | |
HLD | Evan Finegan | ||
KOR | Ron Cook | Quian Williams | |
PR | Ron Cook |
On defense can Taylor Riggans lead a unit which lost some punch to transfers. He and Josh Rodgers could anchor a very good line. George Wolo and Max Michel have also looked good. As much as UB lost it looks like the defensive line is better off thatn the offenseive line.
On offense the biggest questions is Bence Polgar has huge shoes to fill replacing Mike Novitsky at center. Novitsky was arguabally one of the top ten players at the position in the nation, and anchored the rest of the line.