@uncboy10 not picking on you at all, and I love your positivity, but let me know hit on a few things from your post above.
The o-line should be vastly improved.
I'm just not so sure. I'd like to think it will be improved, but I'm going to need Coach Kap to show us something in player development before I start expecting massive improvement from year to year .He can recruit really well, but people keep praising the job he's done with the OL, and I just don't see it. This is a make or break year for him, IMO. OL has to be better, but I'm not so sure how much better it actually will be.
The defense will be dramatically improved. Not saying they'll be good, but you cant be that bad again. Its just not possible. They were so bad, they made bad things look... not bad. I'm not so sure that 2014 is a fair reference point for 2015.
While I agree the defense will be better, again, I'm not sure how much better. This will take time. IMO, the best we can hope for is the defense giving up 3-6 less points per game and perhaps, by the end of the season, 7-9 points less per game. Anything better than that and we should go ahead and get a quote from a local statue builder for a life-size Chizik statue outside Kenan.
As far as causation vs correlation on UNC never grasping opportunities, obviously there's no causation because the entire roster is different every 5 years, but still, some programs just do things a certain way throughout history. And how our football program seems to do things is to fail to grasp mega opportunities. The way I see it though, no better time to buck that trend than right now!
Finally, the schedule, I agree that on its face, it's weak. We obviously avoid FSU and Clemson once again. But our first conference game is at GT, in HeelsHouseOfHorrors, Ga., so that's an L. Tech returns their very effective QB and their defense should be better than it was, so you've gotta think they're the best team in the Coastal until someone takes them down a peg. After GT though, we have an opportunity to pick up two "should-be" wins in Kenan vs. Wake Forest and Virginia. Then we have a sneaky tough game at Pitt on a Thursday night. Heinz Field might be more than 50% full for once. We've done well under Fedora on road Thursday night games though.
IF we can start 3-1 in the ACC we'll have a chance. Duke (in Kenan) is next, and Duke should be a bit worse this year after losing Crowder, but obviously that's no gimme, then another huge clash against Miami (also in Kenan) which could see two Top 25 teams go at it....when the heck was the last time we saw that in Kenan????