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QB: Brady Quinn vs CJ Carr

I'd give the edge to Quinn for now. By the end of the year, Carr may very well have had the better season. Seeing Carr with those calm eyes reminds me of Quinn during his finest moments, especially during the 2005 BYU game.

QB depth, though, is where the 2025 team has a huge advantage.

For QB2, Minchey can easily play now if he had to, whereas 2005's backup was David Wolke, who wasn't exactly that talented.

For QB3, Blake Hebert is a better prospect compared to Evan Sharpley.


RB: Walker / Thomas vs Love / Price

No doubt the 2025 team is better stacked at RB. Walker was a great RB for us, Thomas could have been decent, but the two of them combined aren't nearly as strong as what we have now.

More importantly, we have a young stud in the way of Aneyas Williams ready to step in at a moment's notice, and I don't think we'd see any drop in performance. If we had to rely on James Aldridge in 2005, we would have been dead in the water.


WR: Stovall / Samardzija / Grimes vs Fields / Pauling / Greathouse

Edge goes to 2005's group, but 2025's team has much more depth in waiting.


TE: Fasano / Carlson vs Raridon / Washington / Larsen

Strong advantage 2005. Fasano and Carlson both had productive years, as well as long NFL careers. I'm still not sold entirely on Raridon. He has looked a lot better as the season has progressed, though.

OL:

2025's starting line is better by a good bit.

The more important thing here is that there's a LOT of depth and talent compared to 2005's team, which was running with a skeleton crew (thanks to Willingham getting exactly ONE offensive lineman in the 2004 and 2005 classes). We got really lucky in 2005, that the line stayed healthy, and that we were able to put it together with less than ideal parts. Santucci (converted from defensive end) and Stevenson had very good years, and even had stints in the NFL, but behind them, there was literally nobody ready to play.



The best way I can describe things is that both 2005's and 2025's offenses can generate high damage yields.

2025's offense is a M1 tank with a hardened steel howitzer that can take a beating.

2005's offense was more of a Bradley with a glass cannon that we were fortunate, didn't break.