Maybe - but the biggest criticism in front of Greg right now has nothing to do with money. He didn’t go bowling last season because his defense ranked 119th out of 138 (19th worst of all FBS teams). That’s hard to do as a power conference team - regardless of our peer resource gap. If we ranked 75th nationally instead of 19th worst, we absolutely would’ve won more games. We started 10-0 vs Washington and 14-0 vs Minnesota. Our defense collapsed game after game. Coaching was horrendous. It wasn’t that we suddenly couldn’t afford to be a middle of the pack defense.
In my view - showing real progress on defense is a major hurdle he must overcome this year after that debacle. Given how late in the cycle we hired someone, the paper talent doesn’t seem that different from last year which is why the concern is there. But look, maybe Johansen can work a miracle.
Let me add - while many fans are still frustrated by calls like “Ice the Kicker” that directly led to negative game outcomes, I do believe most would move on from that IF we addressed the defense and had a decent season this year (at least on a short term horizon - meaning most would want to see what Johansen could do with another year. You wouldn’t have many fans calling for his head in that case). If we’re awful again on defense, and win only 4 games that’d be a disaster with Raymond and Duff likely heading out the door. Would not be a good outlook ahead for 2027 in that situation.
Not sure how many true running QB’s there are on the schedule but you have to be able to sack and hurry the stationary QB’s.
