Offense past and present

C

CalHusker

Four-Star Recruit
Haven't posted in a while, but I couldn't resist after making this observation. A while back there was much debate about "all the change". When I was a kid, I remember two things that really seemed to define our offense (option aside): 1. A dominant offensive line and 2. Great depth of studs at running back. No matter what, we always had another "horse" ready to go. I see those same elements coming back with the talent we now have at running back and the monsters we are recruiting for o-line. Now add a dependable passing game... WOW! I think this is going to be a special and memorable year in Husker Football. GBR

 
I gotta agree with that. One thing I didn't understand is how during Solich's tenure as HC we couldn't lure a big time RB here. Any RB would have known he would get plenty of opportunity to carry the ball in the option offense.

I like the style of players we're bringing in. Big, athletic players across the board.

 
I don't think it was a matter of not getting some higher profile talent at running back as much as it was about them not panning out. I remember Jim Rose nearly peeing himself when Thunder Collins announced he was coming to NU. Well, I don't think we need to go into how he turned out. Horne was a 4 star recruit that was highly touted. Again, he never panned out.

Sure, we didn't get a L. Phillips but we can't take prop 48's anymore. We didn't get an Ahman Greene either, but some thought Horne could be just as good. The problem with outstanding RB's is the fact that about as many don't pan out as do. Evans was supposed to be the best thing since beer in a can after he broke Barry Sanders high school records. Well no one told NU he'd become the biggest puss on the team. We thought we were getting the talent, but they didn't pan out. We could go on and on about the RB's that didn't pan out the last 20 years, and there's been a lot of them!

 
Well, in the mid to late 90s, there was a arms race of sort as far as teams putting big time money into their football facilities. Bill Byrne did not do this (Save for skyboxes which I doubt recruits give two craps about), and it hurt our recruiting. Look at Osborne's last few years and see how many RBs he recruited that are now in the NFL. Ahman Green and Correll Buckhalter. Ahman was from Omaha, so that recruit was not hard to get.

But lets also remember that recruiting is an inexact science to say the least. We are all assuming that Marlon Lucky and Leon Jackson will be as good as advertised, when truly we have no idea how they will turn out. They could be like DeAngelo Evans and come down with a severe case of wussitis. Look at Josh Davis. He was rated around #10 by Rivals as a RB coming out of high school. Thunder Collins was highly rated coming out of JUCO, but didn't do a whole lot either. Antwan Guirdry was a highly rated RB/DB recruit who never made it out of JUCO. David Horne was a 4* #6 rated RB recruit who didn't have the toughness to play DI football, but was clearly labeled a "big time RB recruit" at the time.

On the flip side of that, Cory Ross was not even listed as a RB when he was being recruited, but rather as a DB. And he's turned out to be pretty darn good.

 
Both Thunder Collins an David Horne had mildly succesful careers as huskers. They werent Ahman or LP, but remember, Horne had a huge freshman year, and Collins was able to make some big plays when he first arrived. Off the field issues and a general lack of good work ethics is what ruined these two later. Josh Davis was a three star player, and came from a VERY thin running back class. Horne was not a top 100 player either. Before last year, in which we landed two top 100 running backs, we had not landed one since probably Ahman, allthough recruiting services werent big back then. As a matter of fact, if you look at the years under Solich, we harldy recruited any top 100 players, regardless of position. Conversely, USC landed four 5 star players last year alone, all of which were ranked in the top 30.

 
Well, in the mid to late 90s, there was a arms race of sort as far as teams putting big time money into their football facilities. Bill Byrne did not do this (Save for skyboxes which I doubt recruits give two craps about), and it hurt our recruiting. Look at Osborne's last few years and see how many RBs he recruited that are now in the NFL. Ahman Green and Correll Buckhalter. Ahman was from Omaha, so that recruit was not hard to get.
But lets also remember that recruiting is an inexact science to say the least. We are all assuming that Marlon Lucky and Leon Jackson will be as good as advertised, when truly we have no idea how they will turn out. They could be like DeAngelo Evans and come down with a severe case of wussitis. Look at Josh Davis. He was rated around #10 by Rivals as a RB coming out of high school. Thunder Collins was highly rated coming out of JUCO, but didn't do a whole lot either. Antwan Guirdry was a highly rated RB/DB recruit who never made it out of JUCO. David Horne was a 4* #6 rated RB recruit who didn't have the toughness to play DI football, but was clearly labeled a "big time RB recruit" at the time.

On the flip side of that, Cory Ross was not even listed as a RB when he was being recruited, but rather as a DB. And he's turned out to be pretty darn good.
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Well put JR...also by the way, awesome lyrics to a classic true workingman's tune. You don't ever want to go to those "Badlands"

 
If you ask me Horne was rated so high out of High School because he went to Central. I think Gunn was a :star :star :star kid and he wasn't all that great either. I don't think Horne ever did anything against the good teams when he was in High School. I don't think he was a :star :star :star :star recruit.IMO

Anyway back to the original topic if these RB pan out we will have at least 3-4 pretty good backs like we did in the mid 90's. I like that Wagner has all the O-line playing more then one position. This can only make us deeper in the long run.

 
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