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Over/Under: Freshmen Starters

We take a look at how many freshmen may start in 2014, and which ones.

Otto Greule Jr

One of the reasons there was such optimism about Washington's prospects heading into 2013 was that the roster composition had finally caught up with the staff's recruiting. They finally had depth, experience, and talent around the roster and perhaps the best evidence of this was the fact that freshmen basically only started due to injury. The opening day starting lineup featured zero starting freshmen, either true or redshirt.

In 2014 however, it does not appear that the staff will have that luxury. With holes all around the defensive secondary and along offensive skill positions, there are ample opportunities for young guys to come in immediately and play a role.

There are a few standout candidates among the redshirt freshmen to win a starting job. Lavon Coleman is in the thick of the competition to replace Bishop Sankey. Jermaine Kelly looks like the favorite to start opposite Marcus Peters. Troy Williams will take the QB competition well into preseason with the other two candidates. As for the incoming freshmen, Budda Baker is the guy everybody will have their eye on, but Tristan Vizcaino could win a kicking job and one or more of them could surprise and blow everybody away.

Certainly not all of these players will be starters in 2014, and in fact most of them probably won't. But it sure seems like come August 30th there will be a non-zero number of freshmen in the starting lineup.

Over/Under: 2.5 freshmen starters against Hawaii

Later in the year you'd almost certainly take the over, as we saw guys like Damore'ea Stringfellow, Cyler Miles ushered into starting spots a year ago, while guys like Kevin King, Trevor Walker, Joe Mathis played regularly as the season wore on. But assuming a healthy roster for the first game: over or under, and who ya got?