What does Breese bring back? They were loaded for a couple years there...
I remember when Effingham used to reload seemingly every or every other year... Been a minute since I've heard them mentioned.
Effingham has been a 4-5/5-4 type team the last couple years. They return all of their receivers and their top 2 rb's. Lost their QB and a few lineman. Seems like numbers/depth has been their issue, specifically on the lines. Decent line/QB play and they could be a solid team, but their schedule is pretty tough.
Last year they had a Soph who was a very good dual threat QB.
But their star RB graduated along with the backup RB. All of these starting WR graduated as well.
Not sure what they return on the line.
On defense they graduated their top 6 tacklers and 8 of the their top 9.
Yup, lost a majority of starters. Believe 27 seniors last year and have around 25 seniors this year. Kehrer(QB) is the real deal. Return 2 from the line, but got a transfer from MD last winter that's a forsure starter. Coach Short has said in a few articles that our line play should be pretty stout both ways and he's not one that says stuff like that preseason, so I expect the lines to be good.
The starting RB this year likely would've been the #2 last year, but our coaches tend to defer to the seniors until injury/otherwise. Kid is about 5'10 190 and is a bowling ball, but also has wheels/shiftiness. Ran pretty well with the reserves against opposing teams starters at times last year and also had a few return TD's I believe. Second year in a row where we have to replace all of our WR's/TE's. 6'5 Soph. that probably could've played some varsity last year. Just a great athlete. Another 6'4 wildcard former backup QB coming off a knee injury last year and a couple 5'8 waterbug types with one also being a backup QB round out the group. Probably be a more athletic and quicker group this year. Kehrer had to throw in some really tight windows last year, because we only had 1 guy that could consistently get himself open.
Defense has usually been pretty solid under Coach Short. Front-7 was legit last year and return one sure starter in Becker. Depending on how many guys play both ways, we could have two 6'4 270+ monsters at DT with experience, but I expect only one of those guys in at a time because there should be a lot of depth. Should be bigger on the line, but probably not as athletic. LB's looked like we were going with mostly underclassmen in what I saw, but Coach Short did mention a Radloff kid as really standing out all summer. Secondary is my biggest concern again. Do return one CB that rotated in a bunch last year and was good, but the rest is ???'s, although last year was similar. Probably a bit quicker, but not as big. Unfortunately, most of the ideal secondary guys are at MD the next 2 years.
Tougher schedule this year with teams like Waterloo and Centralia in the conference now and Freeburg and Columbia returning a bunch from playoff teams. Won't have as much time to figure things out.
