Let's see.... MTM took over the starting job as a true freshmen before blowing an ACL. Miller will be a Soph and will be blowing guy off the line. Hansen was a nobody, and although he certainly needs to learn to stay in the pocket, showed athletic ability that stunned most of us who thought we recruited a QB with no other options but Idaho State. Speedy was one of the most impressive freshmen in the country. A tight end named Deehan cracked the rotation as a true freshmen. Our last two games, we played two freshmen without taking any guff at all. Jimmy Smith (SO) is the real deal at CB. Cunningham cracked the lineup at DL as a true freshmen, playing over Juniors and Sophs. D. Scott made some outstanding plays, and I'll assume that we may see him healthy and much better. It's hard to judge O-Linemen as individuals without breaking down film, but we played the following guys this year who have at least 3 years left to get better: Miller, Adkins, Behrens, MTM, Bahr, Iltis, Tau.
We redshirted Givens who I saw play OT in the US ARMY All-American game last year and he had no problem blocking the country's best D-Linemen, even though he had lost 30-40 pounds with a mystery illness.
We redshirted Katoa, who lit up the US Army kids all week and got rave reviews.
We redshirted Jon Major, ditto above two.
We got to see Simas tear it up in the spring game. I know, it's just the spring game, but he was WAY better than the other CU receivers imho.
Polk was the #9 RB in last year's class.
What we have is a team that has most of it's talent at Frosh/Soph levels. I think 8 of our top 9 O-Linemen will be underclass next year. That's ridiculous. Part of that is NOT because they are all-world but because Barnett didn't recruit the last two years and Hawk's first class was predictably poor. In addition, there was massive attrition at CU during the scandal, post-scandal, and coaching change. We have no upperclassmen playing line left. Our young guys are perhaps not all world on the line, but they will be better by their Junior year than they were as freshmen.
I think there's a chance that Miller, MTM, Behrens, and Givens will receive all conference honors before they're done. They all have 3 or more years left here.
We need to shore up DL and WR positions QUICKLY. We need to figure out who the QB of the future is. I think Cody is more ready, but Hansen's ceiling is much higher. We solve these issues, and CU will challenge for the North and rank top-25 soon enough. That'd be a big step forward.