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- Thread starter MD Buckeye
- Start date
Taosman
Your Cousin In New Mexxico
Samuel is going to "start out" at running back. Dontre is going to WR. Does this really mean Wilson going out wide? Maybe. Does this mean Samuel will be in the back field exclusively? Ummm? I kind of think not, he's too small right now. But, he came in early so he'll put on some muscle.
Wilson didn't come in early last year I think.
Maybe Samuel plays in the slot some also.
A lot is up in the air right now.
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I've been wondering about this given how many people in 13/14/15 classes I've seen referred to as "Percy Harvin" role. Trying to figure out how they're all going to see the field. There's such a wealth of young talent at the offensive skill positions, I'm starting to understand why Hyde was his first 1000yd back. And starting to think he may be the last too.
All in all, I think it'll be great for Wilson to develop his ball catching skills and route running. He's got a great opportunity to become a very polished offensive player by the time he leaves.
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Agree completely. Urbans offenses usually have so many offensive threats that no one man at RB can take over or has the ball in his hands as much as Hyde had last year. And all were versatile enough to play rb, wr and kr/pr. Were starting to see that now, and to think, next year we add EGW and the issue of his position persists. Especially since hes even smaller than dontre and as explosive as him and Samuel. The same issue was had with Percy harvin, Jeff demps, brandon james and Chris rainey and he got it to work
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RugbyBuck
Our church has no bells.
Agree, but I have to wonder if the splitting time b/w position groups slowed Dontre's development last year. It could be that the staff wants to start these guys off with a dedicated group and then see what happens after they've got the fundamentals of one position nailed down.
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True, but with the amount of RBs on roster its just as easy that urban has a committee. And though Zeke may be first up to bat, he may get spelled more often than hyde with guys like smith amd/ or Dunn
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I'm sure Zeke's production will be great, but you start throwing in guys like Samuel and Wilson into the mix ... I have a feeling we won't see a single RB getting 20+ carries a game much in the future.
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He had that same "committee" last season, and despite the glut at RB Hyde would've had 1,500 regular season yards had he not been suspended the first three games. We had Hall, Smith, Elliott, Dunn, and Ball as the "committee" behind Hyde last year (although we red-shirted Ball due to injury), and Hyde still got the vast majority of carries. If one RB clearly rises above the rest, that RB will have a very good chance of getting 1,000 yards in a 12-game regular season.
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We also weren't balanced, especially the second half of this year.
Of the 873 plays, 635 were on the ground and 238 through the air. Granted a lot of that would've started as pass plays and Miller taking off. Still, it's a huge disparity.
Additionally, Hyde had a total 224 touches -- more than Philly, Wilson, Smith, Spencer, Heuerman, and Fields combined. On one hand it's because he was that good. On the other, it's because the passing game just fell apart for some reason. I don't see either of those playing out again, unless the WR and/or QB positions have fallen flat on their face for one reason or another.
If we're looking at a similar situation at the end of next year where the rush offense is top-5 and the pass offense is under 50th in the Nation... then yea, there will probably be another 1k guy. But I don't think that's what Urban is aiming for when he talks about "balance".
There were more than a few games with less than 200yds passing. I figure there might be 3-4 people involved with the running game: Ez, Brax, Wilson and/or Samuel (or whoever fills the Hybrid roll), and possibly a situational short yardage guy like Ball or Smith. With Wilson moving to WR, he might not be in the mix... but I think somebody will be in that Hybrid position getting their share of the ball.
Last year we had: Hyde, Philly, Smith, Spencer, Heuerman getting most of the snaps with Fields, Wilson, Ez, and Vannett in the mix (I hesitate to include Hall b/c as Hyde came on he didn't find his way on the field very often)
If things go how Urban wants them to, I think it'll be a lot harder to identify just 5 guys who are on the field most of the time and touches are going to be spread around a lot more than they were in 2013. There will be more diversity in the run-game (maybe not quite a "stable"), but there will also be significantly less plays in the run game.
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Interesting, I thought for sure that Samuel would play more in the slot and just get an occasional carry or two. I think he can thrive at RB though, he has a solid frame to get up to 190-200 and not lose any speed. He already looks to be in the 180 range from what I can tell, which is not so bad.
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ShowMeBuck
You know what? Chicken butt.
I think several posters, each in their own way have touched on the issues. We have not seen Urb's full offense for a variety of reasons. We had a brute O Line last year and a beast in Carlos. We had a freak, freak athlete at QB (who still doesn't run the read option all that well and dropped off in passing skills down the stretch.) We also had starting WRs disappear toward the end of the season (that group has come a long way but still far from being complete) and lastly we didn't have anyone outside of Dontre that was the quick twitch athlete like Urb likes to utilize and he was a smallish true freshman. The point is that it is hard to say how each new recruit will be utilized based on how the offense has run the last 2 years. The last 2 offenses were based on getting the most out of the roster at the time more so than representing Urban's real offensive plans.
IMO Curtis Samuel fits the mold of the pivot more than any player he has yet to recruit. And I am not saying that as some crush because he is the newest guy here. His skill set is just different than Dontre has. Both will be awesome. Curtis coming in early is absolutely huge. I have said this many times. If our OLine can be 70% as effective as the 2013 O Line and Brax makes anywhere close to the same improvement as last year with his passing ability I expect the 2014 offense to be better than last year. Yes I know we lose a top 10 RB in our rich history in Carlos. Yes we are completely rebuilding the O Line but bringing in guys like Curtis....and bringing him in EARLY and adding him to the other studs we haven't even seen yet (C Smith, J Marshall, etc etc) and guys we have only seen glimpses of (Dontre, Zeke, etc) will allow Urban to fully execute his spread/speed game.
IMO Curtis Samuel fits the mold of the pivot more than any player he has yet to recruit. And I am not saying that as some crush because he is the newest guy here. His skill set is just different than Dontre has. Both will be awesome. Curtis coming in early is absolutely huge. I have said this many times. If our OLine can be 70% as effective as the 2013 O Line and Brax makes anywhere close to the same improvement as last year with his passing ability I expect the 2014 offense to be better than last year. Yes I know we lose a top 10 RB in our rich history in Carlos. Yes we are completely rebuilding the O Line but bringing in guys like Curtis....and bringing him in EARLY and adding him to the other studs we haven't even seen yet (C Smith, J Marshall, etc etc) and guys we have only seen glimpses of (Dontre, Zeke, etc) will allow Urban to fully execute his spread/speed game.
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We ran Hyde 224 times because he was a bad-ass, and because we could run the ball. Despite the reputation that UFM has for pass-happy offenses, he actually would prefer to run the ball if the run game is being effective...we've seen that now for the two years he's been here. If UFM thinks Elliott (or Smith, or Ball, or Dunn) is going to get 5-6 yards a pop consistently, you can best bet that Elliott we get 20+ carries in the game, unless we fall way behind real quickly. Miller is going to get his 7-8 designed runs a game. Backup RBs will get another 8-10 carries or so. The primary RB will get 20-25 carries. Add in the usual 6-8 scrambles per game by Miller, you have 40-50 running plays per game. Miller threw 255 passes in 12 games, which is just over 21 passes per game. Even if he upped his attempts all the way up to 30 a game, that still leaves 42 running plays per game (based our our running 72 plays per game last year). If we run the ball 40+ times a game, it's no stretch to expect the featured RB to get 20+ carries if he's as good as we hope Hyde's successor is...
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