i believe your take at the beginning of the year was that you didn't see much difference in the a&m and texas rosters, so i'll take all the rest with a few grains of salt.
overall, my prediction of 10-2 was founded on what i thought would be a very good defense paired with a functional offense, albeit with a lack of speed in a few areas that would lead to defeat against bama and ole miss. the speed definitely bit us against ole miss, however it also reared its head vs lsu, and the functional offense never really came around, primarily because the oline took a while to get together and the qb injury (insert 'jimbos offense sucks and would have been the same with haynes king' here to the degree you think appropriate).
on your above points:
dl will take a step back for sure. we've got a ton of talent, but it will take a bit to come together. mckinley jackson will be playing for a draft grade and he simply has to be more impactful.
lb will be better, you're overrating hansford and cooper should be in line for an all-sec season. at safety, o neal actually turned into an incredible team leader, which is why he never got removed for jardin gilbert. we were playing two 4.6-4.7 guys all year at deep safety, hence the end of the lsu game, mississippi st completing 90% of their passes, etc - i think this gets better next year with gilbert / antonio johnson rotating in more. don't see any way demani richardson goes pro, he seems undraftable at this point.
on offense, wydemeyer sucked all year, not sure what happened to him, either the hand issue or looking forward to the next level. we should be able to replace his production with better blocking. calzada enters the spring at 3rd string. nice kid, tried hard, simply not capable of processing at this level of football. it's on jimbo he didn't have a better option ready, however king decidedly beat him out last year and i imagine he does so again with weigman waiting in the wings. wouldn't be surprised to see calzada transfer in the spring, and i hope he never buys another beer again.
the schedule does present some challenges on the front end, however we'll see pretty quickly if i'm correct about the ceiling on this team next year. i think a more productive qb and speed upgrade on the perimeter on both sides of the ball raises the bar a bit, as always i'll be here to have shit thrown at me.