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Buckeye Tailbacks - 2004 (official thread)

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FKA: Congrats on the newborn. It's the greatest thing that can happen to a man and I'm happy for you. And I agree with your confidence that tOSU will have good running backs this year.

My post was about the current starting running back, not any and all future starting running backs. I simply used the term "the starting running back" to avoid putting Lydell's name in the headline of my post. I sincerely wish him well and hope he gains 2000 yards this year. It just looks to me, based on last year's actual experience and this year's scrimmages, that he may not be the right guy to lead the running game.
 
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IF it were 2003 all over again and it was all on Lydell's shoulders I would be very concerned. Thankfully it's 2004 and we have two freshmen who look like they can come in and contribute.

The thing that does concern me is that we are going to need either A) a breakout season from Ross or B) a breakout season from a freshman, in order to have the kind of running game we need to keep defenses honest and off of Zwick.

While either of those options are possible, I would hate to have to bet big money on them.

FWIW-Ross by year at OSU:
2003: 193/826 4.3 ypc(84th in the nation based on ypgame)
2002: 166/619 3.7 ypc
2001: 120/419 3.5 ypc
Career: 479/1,864 3.89 ypc

3.89 is pretty pedestrian but I do like seeing the upward trend in ypc as his career has gone along. You have to figure with his health issues and a 12 game season he isn't likely to carry the ball anymore than he did last year so lets call it 180 carries for 2004. Also lets continue the upward trend and give him 4.75 ypc. That still only projects to 855 yards for 2004.

If 2004's run game is as non-existent as 2003 was we are in deep kimchi and 850ish from Ross is putting us in that same range.

To get away from the stats, my bigget gripe with both Ross and Hall is their uncanny ability to run to darkness. After watching the tapes from '02 & '03 over and over I really do believe they are both promising proctologists because they did their level best to jam themselves up a lineman's ass on nearly every play when in most cases their was a hole(other than the lineman's) to hit.

All in all, I fear that the breakout season from a Frosh is the better bet than Ross or Hall suddenly discovering vision or durability.
 
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my bigget gripe with both Ross and Hall is their uncanny ability to run to darkness.
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Jacksonville: I don't know if that line is original to you, but it is an absolutely perfect description of Hall and Ross. They follow their blockers even when their blockers have been pushed back into the backfield. It's incredible.

I've actually wondered if it was an over-coaching problem. Surely they don't run that way instinctively -- or they wouldn't have been recruited to tOSU in the first place. And they both do it consistently, so it's not just some individual quirk.

Maybe Doc Tressel will correct this and we'll start seeing Chicago Bear backs running to darkness. Then we'll know where the real problem lay.
 
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Ross will be fine this season. I hope that this column will be searchable so we can go back and reference all the naysayers when Ross is voted to the All Big Ten team.

He has been bothered by overconfidence and a bum wheel, two huge.......huge no no's if you are a tailback. Not to mention that he bulked up last season which slowed him down even more. He listened to the hype about him as a freshman and believed it. As a sophomore MoC came along......end of story. So last year he thought that it was his time to shine, and that it would all be handed to him, and it did not, which leads us to this season. The thing that will finally hit Ross is that fantastic word "urgency", he will realize that this is his final chance to live up to the hype. Most hyped up players go through a period of mediocrity, Ross's just happens to be really bad. I truely believe that he will have a Johnathan Wells/Chris Perry season, in fact I feel that his situation heavily imitates the Wells situation. I sincerely believe in Lydell this season, and by the Big Ten season most of you will share my views.
 
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Personally I think Zwick can do a lot to keep the defenses off him by dumping the ball off to TE's or RB's before the pressure gets to him. If he can hurt a few teams with the short pass they will start playing back, which will open up the run.
 
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I hope you guys also realize this will all depend on the O line. MoC had the ability to make a hole for himself, so to speak, and was usually pretty successful while running for the Bucks. Ross and Hall, however, did not seem to have that ability. I don't necessarily agree that they "run to darkness". While that has been the case at times, usually there simply isn't a hole anywhere, hence they are tackled for a loss, or no gain. If the line plays as poorly this year as they did last year, this isn't gonna be pretty. However, a good O line can make a mediocre RB look like a Heisman candidate.
 
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The most recent comments to my knowledge are that both freshmen RBs will play and so will both WRs.

My feeling is that we don't need to bank these guys for the future because the pipeline is really open right now and flowing at just about every position.

Many of the best from anywhere want to have a look.
 
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