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Running back rotation


rebdawg

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I think we may be missing the mark in regards to our tailback rotation. Last year it worked great and this year it has not been nearly as productive. True Ronnie and Cadillac had historical talents, but Tre has proven to be a good runner and I believe that Carl, Kenny, and Brad have good talent, too. Is it possible that the one "go to" among this foursome is a guy who needs 7 or 8 carries under his belt to get going? Stacy Danley was always better in the second half than in the first. Rudi usually put up okay numbers until the fourth quarter where he then lit people up. Maybe one of these guys is that kind of back. But by rotating them perhaps we are not giving that one guy a chance to find his rhythm? Not saying this is how it is but it is more of a philosophical question – no real answer.

Any one? Any one?

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I think we may be missing the mark in regards to our tailback rotation.  Last year it worked great and this year it has not been nearly as productive.  True Ronnie and Cadillac had historical talents, but Tre has proven to be a good runner and I believe that Carl, Kenny, and Brad have good talent, too.  Is it possible that the one "go to" among this foursome is a guy who needs 7 or 8 carries under his belt to get going?  Stacy Danley was always better in the second half than in the first.  Rudi usually put up okay numbers until the fourth quarter where he then lit people up.  Maybe one of these guys is that kind of back.  But by rotating them perhaps we are not giving that one guy a chance to find his rhythm?  Not saying this is how it is but it is more of a philosophical question – no real answer.

Any one?  Any one?

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I'll concede that it isn't a bad idea, however, another reason for increased RB production in the 4th quarter is a tired Defence....

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Some holes in the line, and maybe just a little bit of imagination with counters, wide pitch outs or some reverses would do wonders. When are we going to see one of our big and fast WR's take a reverse handoff from Kenny and go 80 yards for a TD? If that doesn't happen at least once this season, I say we fire Borges and start over. (He says only halfway jokingly.)

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hate to be too critical of borges, but it does seem the running game lacks imagination...none of those misdirection pitches that used to give rudi Johnson a huge amount of space to run into...no reverses either...dye used to run one or two of those everygame...and they averaged big yards...hell look at how wide open things were when GT ran bootlegs everyplay...

the succesfull runs that tre had in the GT game were on little draw type plays that had a compoennt of misdirection...it is really rare for our O-line to open up a big enough hole ona dive play to get a decent run...I guess they were just trying to practice that blocking until the o-line could get it...but if our O-line can't get it then maybe they should try a smarter way instead of jsut forcing something that don't work...on the positive side...Cox and Borges probably could have passed the ball up and down the field on saturday if that is what they wanted to do...I have confidence that we will always at least have a chance to move the ball with Cox at QB and borges playbook in effect...some more misdirection on running plays could do wonders though...and I don't just mean the one trick play a game that borges did last year....more mis direction than that is needed.

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Errr, uhh. I think we're trying to find out who's the #1 and #2 guy and then distribute carries accordingly.

Give it time guys. We only lost two top 5 nfl draft running backs from last year.

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Errr, uhh. I think we're trying to find out who's the #1 and #2 guy and then distribute carries accordingly.

Give it time guys. We only lost two top 5 nfl draft running backs from last year.

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Exactly! I am getting sort of tired of hearing people wanting a "go to guy" now. That makes absolutely no sense when you have 3 young RBs like Stewart, Irons, and Lester. Why would you do that to any one of them right now? It only makes more sense to spilt up the carries to see who is going to be more effective. You then take that info and go from there of who starts to get more carries. We are only two games into the season of a young and inexperienced offensive backfield. No reason to rush things. It looks like that is what the coaching staff is doing. That is why they are the coaches and all of us just post on a message board. :D

As far as the running game goes, it should not matter how many carries each one get as long as our total rushing yards are decent. I believe with the talent we have in the backfield, that could happen quickly if the OL cooperates. Without an improvement in the OL, it is not going to matter how many carries each RB gets.

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I have to say that Brad Lester showed more flash than anyone I saw Saturday. Don't know if he can pass-protect, but he looked good when he was in there.

As far as Borges' imagination is concerned, it puzzled me last year when he pulled "gadget" plays (e.g., reverse flea-flicker vs. Arkansas, halfback pass vs. Georgia) and then didn't surprise Bama much at all. Yeah, I know he passed off a fake option and had stacked eceivers at least once, but I wanted more razz-ma-tazz against our arch enemy. I know he has the smarts and I know he has to dance with what he's got, but with this being his second year I was looking for more wide-open stuff. UCLA had a 20-game win streak when he was there. Cleaned USC's plow several times, too. Somehow we seem awfully bland.

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  Somehow we seem awfully bland.

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You are right. However, we had a more experienced backfield last year and Borges probably felt alot more comfortable doing that kind of stuff with Brown, Caddy, and Campbell. With the younger backfield, they need to get more a "feel" for the normal plays during a game situation before they start running more complicated plays. Plus, the OL needs to be blocking better before we do any of that. It will all eventually come together. We have to be patient as fans just like the coaches have to be patient with younger players getting more experience under their belts. No need to rush things. We are not going to play for a MNC this year, but with our talent we can still in the SEC. If somehow we are in the MNC hunt at the end of the year, then that would bonus.

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Our running backs are fine IMO.. You can't do anything without running room.

I did notice that a lot of our HB draw plays worked well.. but we never did any counter plays or hardly any tosses. Did we ever have any long running plays last year? Ever since Petrino left, we lost those long TD runs.. I don't know why though.

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