In fact, for all our desire to have King involved more, most of his running plays get stuffed. His first couple of touches on the ground usually net pretty good, after that, opposing D’s are tracking him every play.
Also, from the stats, it looks like the problem with the run game is we don’t run ENOUGH not that we’re not good at it. I’ve been critical of the O-line’s run blocking as have many others but the fact of the matter is we break off enough long runs of 10+ yards to justify continuing to run. We can’t stop running because we got stuffed on a series. Play calling, of course, is very important to a successful run game and there seems to be room for improvement.
The back sometimes misses the seem or ‘hole’ as it was called in my day. As a former RB, i can tell you that it’s harder than you think and good field vision is a gift from God and not something you can teach a guy. But, you can identify who has it and we need to recruit those kids. Craig Williams from Crosby, who’s lightening fast also has excellent field vision. He’s currently committed elsewhere but it’s guys like him that we need.
Birden, Catalon and King had better averages with Postma than with Allen. The more the QB keeps the ball, the more it opens up the run when he hands it off. I think after sitting down with Postma and watching the tapes, he will probably hand off a few more times to balance it out. He had one more keep than hand off. He needs to let them do a little more of the work to stay healthy.
My biggest concern is that our backs as a group don’t really have good vision. I watch other teams and their backs will bounce the run outside instead of just running into the pile of blockers and defensive players. I realize that you sometimes have to dig deep and try to move the pile, but running blindly into tackle after tackle concerns me. Big plays tend to happen in the running game when a back cuts and finds a crease or a cutback lane that really was not designed to be there. Our runners never seem to find one.
This is particularly important when you don’t have blazing speed in the backfield. This is exactly what made Arian Foster so good. He didn’t have blazing speed, but he had incredible field vision. One cut and he found the hole.
I had to put this up. Vision, seeing the holes developing, offensive linemen buying time, anticipating WR blocking up field. There is a trust factor that we often forget to mention. Why was Postma so effective running the ball? Trust. Has Allen developed that trust? It is up for debate. We want to control the clock as much as we can against SMU. I fully expect a ton of running plays either by our backs or by Postma. This will open up downfield plays. We have to keep at it. Four games do not make a season.
Personally I like a running game with a full back. Can our offense allow it in some plays why not? Mixing up confuses the defense. Would Josh Burell fit that roll? Why not try it.
Not if you count the WRs screens as running plays. Obviously they don’t count as running plays officially, but we clearly use them as an extension of the running game.
