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Your 2017 Texas Trojans.
Hired Scout: Irving Fontenot
Hired DC: Walter Blake- We lost DC Steve Borders. Painful loss. GL in Cleveland Steve.
Retirements:
QB Leslie Steiner- Les retired from the game going 7-3 for the Trojans while starting for a injured Chung. He was the reason Texas went to the play-offs. Sure to be in the HOF.
LB Carlos Dotson- 2nd in all-time Texas tackles with 873 with 276 assists. He also added 20 int's.
DT Lynn Phifer
S Vance Nolan
DE Neal Peterson
Franchise and Summer:
QB Chung was franchised. He wanted like 30m for 2 years and a nice big bonus. He renegotiated for a more reasonable figure of 13.5m for the last 2 years.
The summer league saw CB Artie Dignan. Although we saw no improvement as he lost 2 current to go to 60/82. Training camp seemed to be the charm as he came out as 77/85(82/85 right at the moment). 2nd highest rated CB in the league. Lets see if he can live up to that hype.
FA Signings and Trades:
This is where Texas made some fairly big signings. I normally do very little in FA but I felt that this could be Chung's last horrah and I wanted to give him another legit target or two and still give the defense some help.
WR Sherman Jarvis- What needs to be said about this man. Second WR in the league last year and is a great target for Chung.
WR Odis Bentley- Not sure he ever reached his potential in Cleveland but will have his chance in Texas. He will be the 3rd or 4th WR.
RB Grant Hernandez- His running skills have taken a beating the last couple of years but still has great receiving skills so he figures to be another good target for Chung. Didn't play last year but the year before he put up a 90% completion rate. He also brought a LR playbook with him.
DE Ryan Grier- Last year he got to start 11 games for Murfreesboro. He should shore up my DL and give me a little bit of depth in that position.
LB Courtney Cleeland- A DPOY in 2006. Mr. Cleeland will try to replace Dotson. He only started 6 games last year but still has what he needs to break in to the starting line-up. No sacks last year but I think we will see some more out of him this year.
The Draft:
Pick 1-23 Center Mark Hoppe 40/73 - a 6-3 289 pound center from La Salle. I love this guy. Right size and VG combine tells me this is my future leader(95) and anchor of the O-line.
Pick 3-26 Punter Bernie Baxter 41/69 He will move into Terry's job next year. Just thinking ahead.
Pick 4-25 Fullback Phillip Aguilar 32/57 With the loss of FB Smith to Oakland in the trade for Jarvis I thought that I could use a back-up to FB Forbes. A strong guy and very fan-friendly.
Pick 7-22 SS Fred Hahn 14/45 He'll probable make the team due to need. Although, He does have some potential.
Although we lost starting LT Kyle Boyer for the year in the first exhibition game I still feel that we are fielding the best Texas team ever. Unless I run into alot of injuries and/or bad luck I feel the receiving corps should cause other teams (Tulsa) headaches trying to double-team WR's Watt and Jarvis. Add in 3rd year TE Bennett and WR's Bentley and Nafis and we are ready. Our secondary has had another year to mature and are ready to stop more of the long passes that seem to happen at the most inopportune moments. Good luck to all this season.
I've always tried to be realistic in my statements regarding my team and after looking at all of the past seasons I will stand by my comments. I cant say too much about the team from 2003-09 as I took over a team that, after 3-4 different owners, hadn't reached the play-offs yet in 7 seasons. So I cant say how good the team in 2007 that went 10-6 but failed to get into the play-offs. The 2012 and 2014 seem to be the best teams I've fielded. In 2012 it seemed, during the season, that the team was destined(not just my opinion) to win it all and did. That was with 2 very good WR's, Watt and Gomez. I think the defense was average at best as Roman Bond was the only player in the secondary that was all that great. Although that years team had a little better OL I think that the WR's are stronger this year and the secondary, with CB Dignan and S Boldin, are possibly the best ever. Most everything else is close to the same more or less. So, I'll take this team over them.
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