Daniel Thomas

Section26

Walk-on
Daniel Thomas is having a good year by anyone's standards. 1166 yards and 11 TD's on the ground through 11 games. But how good is he against top defenses like the one he'll face on Saturday?

Against teams in the top 50 in total defense:

Oklahoma (#6)- 88, 1

UCLA (#38)- 54 yards, 1

Missouri (#39)- 79, 0

Against teams outside the top 50 in total defense:

Kansas (#53)- 185, 1

Texas Tech (#55)- 49, 0

UMass (FCS)- 104, 0

Tennessee Tech (FCS)- 139, 2

Texas A&M (#104)- 91, 4

LA-Lafayette (#93)- 136, 1

Iowa State (#92)- 96, 0

Colorado (#72)- 145, 1

With a limited sample size you can see just how average he is against any defense worth a salt. Nebraska is ranked #10, btw. Okay, so how does this compare to, say, Roy Helu?

Against teams inside the top 50 in total defense:

Oklahoma (#6)- 138, 0

Virginia Tech (#16)- 169, 0

Missouri (#39)- 88, 1

Anyway, im not saying Daniel Thomas isn't a good back. But he is facing a defense much closer to OU than he is to any of the teams he has dominated this season. We shouldn't have any problem holding him under 100 yards, and we all know how stingy our defense is if a team happens to get lucky enough to back us up... :D

 
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oh, we will be able to handle ksu, look what we did to va. tech's run game. the strongest part of their game is going against the strongest part of our game and ours strongest part is much, much stronger. it the only thing we are threatened by is their running game, we can handle that.

 
I don't think they have the ability to run effectively against us

Reesing tore it up with scrambling, but that's because we were more focused on the pass, imo

 
oh, we will be able to handle ksu, look what we did to va. tech's run game. the strongest part of their game is going against the strongest part of our game and ours strongest part is much, much stronger. it the only thing we are threatened by is their running game, we can handle that.
Exactly, our defense will be able to handle him just fine. It's Senior Day and our D is going to be SCARY!!! I almost feel sorry for the hurting they are going to put on Ksucks O, I don't think Suh and company are going to be denied. Plus, I bet they aren't happy with their performance against Kansas and they are going to take it out on KU's cousins.

 
We just need to tackle... we did our best job tackling against OU that I can remember in a long time, but last week against KU we just didn't wrap up and simply tackle good enough.

If we can consistently bring Thomas down without breaking a lot of tackles we'll be fine. Also we need to bring down Banks as soon as he touches the ball and not let him get in space.

 
I dont think you guys have too much to worry about. KSU will beat you only if they do so with turnovers and special teams. Thomas, although talented, didnt hurt MU and wont (atleast, should not) hurt Nebraska

As noted above he had 79 yards on 23 carries. 3.4 a carry and that includes 2, 9 yard runs. And for those who didnt see the game. MU did that to him with 7 in the box. The only time there were 8 in the box was if MU brought a blitz from the DB's.

He has some shiftyness, jukes and spins. But is more of a downhill runner. Doesnt seem to be a threat at all to catch the ball. Infact he was pulled from the lineup for a smaller back that was more of a threat in their passing game by the time there was only 6 or 7 mins left in the game.

 
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