Yeah, we definitely lose a few key players: LB Brett Taylor, WR Jaelon Acklin, C Jacob Judd, who will all likely be getting a serious chance at the next level, plus a few other guys that have a decent shot at continuing their playing career in some fashion. Like you said, Moon could step up at LB, probably not at the level of Taylor, but is a very respectable LB in his own right. Khalen (pronounced like Colin or call-in) Saunders is just about the fastest and most athletic D-lineman I've seen in a long time.
Last year's interceptions leader, DB Justin Fitzpatrick, is back for his senior season as well, and we've got a good amount of talent overall in the backfield, so I'm not too worried about that area. I'm very interested to see what Fitzpatrick chooses to do with his future after this season too; he's extremely talented in many areas...as
a football DB, as
a solid defensive outfielder on the baseball team, and
as an award-winning sports broadcasting student. Just one of those kids that has a lot of options open to him in his future.
As you mentioned, we will likely be more run-based this year on offense...McShane and Norris being our primary backs. Not sure if they use the terms much anymore with the versatility of many of the players now, but McShane is more like a traditional halfback...good hands for catching short throws, good acceleration through gaps, breakaway speed. Norris in this case would be the fullback, sometimes blocking, sometimes pushing the line, good for a solid few yards when you need them like in a 3rd and 3-type situation.
O-line might be kinda young, so that's one spot we're a little concerned about, and we don't really know how WR is going to play out yet. Our very good QB is back for one more year, so if he's got anyone to throw to, that should be ok. Then again, we were kinda worried about that last year with two of the best WRs in Leatherneck history both graduating at the same time, then Acklin just kinda came out of nowhere and broke nearly all the school receiving records for game and season (and a few conference records). Hard to tell at this point if there's another Acklin waiting in the wings or not.
We'll know a lot more once we get through spring practices (which we pretty much just started) and have our spring game on April 20th.
So, things to do in/around Macomb. Well, if you're going to be in town from Friday afternoon until after the game (which, like you mentioned, will probably be at 3...that's usually when the early season home games are for us), I'd recommend checking out the downtown square...there's shopping, we have some pretty cool looking sculptures around the area (
here's the original brochure, although most of those sculptures shown have been purchased and replaced by new ones...the locations are the same though), as well as a ton of
very interestingly designed "Rocky dogs" (Rocky is our bulldog mascot) all over town, but
many of which are in the downtown area and on campus (although I'm partial to
one in particular in front of the Regional Office of Education just about half a block south of the corner of the downtown square).
Often during certain weekends in the summer and fall there is a car show downtown with a live band (I haven't seen the schedule of that to see if it'd be going on that weekend or not yet) and the weekend you guys are in town is also often the weekend that we hold our
annual Balloon Rally (much of which takes place right across the street from the main parking/tailgate lot for the football game).
As for dinner, I'd highly recommend stopping by either the
Jackson Street Pub which is a mile or so west of the square, closer to campus, or
Chubby's (which is on the square). Both are known for having great
horseshoes (a sandwich/dish that is unique to central Illinois). If you're really hungry, get a horseshoe, if not...go for a pony/ponyshoe (trust me, even a pony is plenty for most people). If you're at Jackson Street, I highly recommend the breaded tenderloin horseshoe, and at Chubby's, I'm a big fan of the buffalo chicken horseshoe.
Anyway, I'd imagine that would keep most people busy for an afternoon/evening around town. We'll know a lot more specifics about the fall schedule once we get into summer, so be sure to check back in with us once things get a bit closer to the start of the season.