...not counting chickens before they've hatched

Running Back: Here's the basic argument for this year.

Last year LJ Martin was a breakout star, while Robbins was basically AWOL due to injury (so not a big loss). Plus the solid performance of the last two games against quality teams is a good indicator of future success.

Which all sounds good.  Except that breakout star LJ Martin had 518 yards on 109 carries (4.75 ypc) and AWOL non-contributor Aidan Robbins had 485 yards on 101 carries (4.80 ypc).  And Aidan Robbins was also the leading rusher in those last two games that we're pinning so much of our hopes on.  I expect 2023 LJ to be better than 2022 LJ.  But injured Robbins was also (by the numbers) barely better than 2022 LJ, so unless we get a second guy to complement him, it seems like a downgrade.  And in this writeup, I've generally tried to avoid making huge leaps of faith in guys who haven't yet shown it.  Ropati has 200 yards over 3 years at BYU.  Davis has 390 (and a third of those were in a single game against Wyoming) over 4 years.  It's absolutely not impossible that one of them makes a jump.  But it's not something I can expect

Wide Receiver: 

multiple members of this group are capable of elevated or breakout seasons if the offense around them can simply not be terrible. Last year was one of the most uninspiring QB/OL/Offensive Coordinator performances I can recall.

Nothing but agreement from me here...but then again, wasn't that the case last year.  A lot of the same guys (I'm assuming the true freshman don't get too much opportunity for breakout with how stacked we are at this position) who had that same capacity last year...but were surrounded by the same QB and OC we have this year...and most of the same OL.  I'm actually very high on our WR corps. But I was last year as well, which is why they're only slightly improved.  Because they had the capability to do more last year also

Corner: As mentioned, one of the things I do to try to not get carried away as a fan is to not give too much credit to undemonstrated hype.  Right now we've got some guys that have lofty praise from the DC and a JUCO transfer with intangibles (but we keep bringining in FCS guys to start over him).  It's absolutely possible that they both excel - I hope they do.  But it's not something I can confidently project or expect

Safety: I definitely vacillated between calling this a slight upgrade and a solid upgrade.  And reading your comments, I think I may have gotten it wrong.  You may be right that it should be a solid upgrade.  I worried a but about Harper returning from a second torn ACL in 3 years, and the walk-ons kind of did it by committee - there were so many injuries that nobody really stood out as a breakout star.  So that's why I went with slight upgrade.  But I'm comfortable calling this one a full upgrade