84HuskerLaw
All-Conference
Rex Burkhead was a dam fine RB and certainly would have been a FB in TO's days and could have played IB as well but lacked the break away 4.4 speed it would have taken to crack the line up from the deep spot. During the 90s we had almost zero RBs on the roster that played any significant time in their careers that ran slower than 4.55 and few were over 4.5 really. Even big Dan Alexander who finished under Solich was a sub 4.5 guy. Cory Ross was perhaps the slowest IB to start for the Huskers unless you go back to the '70s with big slow guys like Monte Anthony, etc. At that time the RBs were favored if they were bigger and 'pile pushers' when we tried to over power instead of out run defenders.
It is rather stranged that Omaha has failed to produce any really high caliber RBs in the past deade or so. We used to always take the top backs out of Omaha Central. Solich recruited David Horne out of Omaha instead of North Platte's star Danny Woodhead and instead of USC star Reggie Bush. Horne ran a 4.8 or so and never could have turned the corner on anybody. The option game was not going to work as the QB would have already turned the corner or been tackled waiting on the IB to get to the pitch location.
It is rather stranged that Omaha has failed to produce any really high caliber RBs in the past deade or so. We used to always take the top backs out of Omaha Central. Solich recruited David Horne out of Omaha instead of North Platte's star Danny Woodhead and instead of USC star Reggie Bush. Horne ran a 4.8 or so and never could have turned the corner on anybody. The option game was not going to work as the QB would have already turned the corner or been tackled waiting on the IB to get to the pitch location.