First, congrats to Horns on dominate win over Rice. I hope someone can tell me I'm wrong here. 250+ yds rushing is great, but #1 and #2 rushers are the QB's. Behind this O-line shouldn't things be coming a little easier.
What does it matter. Fozzy was out and many consider him a guy just about to take over the #1 back spot. Cody Johnson was the story to me, as he looked great. We have waited for a long time to have a big back that can run downhill. He is a great blocker as well. Wait till we get Fozzy running behind him.
So how is it bad if the defense needs to respect the running ability of the QB? Seems like I remember thread after thread last year about the running game sucked because the QB posed no threat. We got us some serious Goldy-Locks syndrome here. It's never Juuusst Right.
We're averaging 204.3 yards rushing per game and 298.0 passing per game. I don't care if Mack's granny is carrying the ball as long as we continue to move it. Looks like the O-line is blocking for the QBs for sure
I would agree that as long as the yds are coming it shouldn't matter from where. However, you must admit that having McCoy take that many hits is not ideal.
Hmmmm. For some reason I'm thinking we did OK the last time we had a QB lead the team in rushing for the season.
It is it imperative that Fozzy gets well soon and gets on the field. McGee and Chris O are not the answer.
If we don't get much better play out of our running backs, we lose to OU for sure and probably 2 or 3 others in conference. With that said, I think we'll see a break out game against Arkansas from our running backs. They've all got something to prove and this game will provide them a perfect chance to do just that. Vondrell needs to prove he can be the guy in this kind of offense. Cody needs to prove he's not just a bulldozer against the Rice's of the world. Fozzy needs to prove that he's as quick and potentially game-breaking as advertized. Mack needs to prove he's got a running game, and judging by his emotional responses at the presser today regarding this topic, I think you'll see him instruct Mr. Greg Davis to put the ball in the hands of our RB's more than we have all year. I'm confident we'll like what we see.
So how is it bad if the defense needs to respect the running ability of the QB? Hell Neb. did it for years...
VY wasn't the leading rusher because of superior blocking. He was just a freak. He broke tackles regurlarly, he made people miss regularly and he was so deceptively fast that he was very hard to tackle. I'd say 45% of VY's rushing yards were due to unique abilities of VY that Colt (or almost any other QB) doesn't have. The skill level, speed and tackling ability of the defenses is going to get much better soon.
Colt is only averaging 8 carries a game. Take out his 4 sacks and you're down to about 7 carries a game. Take out the runs that were the result of nobody being open, a broken play, or the pressure coming to early and you're down to maybe 5 or 6 runs per game for Colt. That's not unreasonable at all. If guys are covered and Colt sees a wide open lane, should he not take it? He's no Vince Young, but he is still a good running QB. Maybe not for an 80 yarder to the house, but for a 15 yard 1st down or a 12 yard TD, why the hell not? Whether you like it or not it is part of his game. And it keeps the defense honest and opens up his passing game. It's a big part of what makes him good. When you guys keep saying (in the 18 threads there have been on this subject) that Colt is our leading rusher you make it sound like he's getting a majority of our carries and yards. He's not. He's only the leader because the RBs have to share carries between 4 of them. Colt is averaging 68 yards a game. (some of which were not called plays) Chiles averages 34 yards a game. The RBs average 116 a game. So what's the problem? If we had one premier RB instead of 4 we'd look pretty normal. What you are seeing is not a high number of carries by Colt or a lack of production by the RBs, it's just the by-product of them sharing the carries.
