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(Re)-Introducing: Buffalo Bulls Football: Making the Leap - 2015 Edition

Bringing back a series from last year, highlighting the UB Football players poised to "Make the Leap" in the upcoming season.

By John McWhinnie
Danny Wild-USA TODAY Sports

Last summer, leading up to the 2014 season I took some inspiration from a series that the writers on NFL.com's Around the NFL write before each NFL season and I applied that to the UB football team. In hindsight I think the results were mixed because I never gave a proper introduction to what I was doing and I didn't plan it out very well; but, the pieces that did get a conversation going were quite enjoyable, and I'd like to repeat that on a larger scale this summer.

The premise behind the Buffalo Bulls Making the Leap series is that each week I'll highlight one offensive and one defensive player, each with their own posts, that will "Make the Leap". What does "Make the Leap" mean, you might ask? Well, I'm glad you did! Making the leap can mean one of two things:

  1. The player is a former reserve or role player, someone you might not know a whole lot about, that is primed to emerge into the starting lineup and make an impact for the Bulls.
  2. Or, the player is a starter who is primed to step up their game from a solid starter to a bona fide star out on the gridiron.
That being said, each post will be broken down into 3 main sections:
  1. Career Review/Why He's Here -  A brief review of the player's career so far and why I have put them on the list.
  2. Obstacles - Obstacles that will affect the player and make attaining success more difficult.
  3. Season Expectations - What are some reasonable expectations for the player heading into the season based on past performance and the their role heading into the season.
  4. Prediction - Where applicable, I'll give my prediction of the player's stats for the upcoming season.
Each post will also have a poll at the end for you to choose your own stats prediction for the player. And speaking of predictions, I actually did pretty well on some of my predictions last year; for example, lets look at Matt Weiser. I predicted:
20 receptions, 225 receiving yards, and 3 touchdowns
He actually got:
15 receptions, 286 yards, and 4 touchdowns

The posting schedule for this summer will be as follows:
- Offensive player posts will be posted every Wednesday starting July 1st
- Defensive player posts will be posted every Saturday starting July 4th

Finally, if you have any players that you think I should cover in this series, post a comment below with who you think, or send a tweet to @UBBullRun and if I use your choice I'll give you a shoutout in the post!

Go Bulls!

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