In the Deed the Glory
All-Conference
and here is my quote from the other thread....sorry I'm late to the party on this one!!xThis is what I posted in the other thread.
There is evidence to suggest that Brandon Jackson is equal to if not better than Helu, even if it's in a couple of ways.
First of all, Brandon Jackson did in fact rush for over 1,000 yards in a season (2006), but net losses took him 11 yards short of this accomplishment and he had to settle for 989. In said season, Jackson had 188 carries (32 less than Helu) and a 5.3 ypc avg. (compared to Helu's 5.2). He did have two fewer touchdowns then Helu, however.
But there are a couple of intangibles here as to why I would give Jackson a slight edge.
1) He had proven skills breaking runs to the outside or keeping them inside between the tackles. Helu, thus far, has shown he is a much better perimeter guy than he is a power guy.
2) Injuries never plagued Jackson. He remained relatively healthy through his entire college career and was very reliable. Helu has been unable to make it through an entire season without being hampered by some sort of issue.
3) Jackson is on an NFL roster. Not to say making an NFL roster equates to college talent, because I do not believe such a thing. However, he obviously had all of the physical tools to take himself to the next level. This may be a personal feeling, but I don't see Helu having an easy go at an NFL team because of his injuries and inability to be consistently effective between the tackles.
edit: I forgot about Kenny Wilson as far as sharing carries.Ok.....I don't want to get into a pissing match here, but you're telling me that a guy with less yards, less carries, relatively the same ypc, and less touchdowns is better? On top of that, you say that Helu doesn't run between the tackles and Jackson did and did so more effectively. I would point to the relative strength of the offensive line that year compared to last, the determination to pound the rock that the team as a whole adopted under the current running game coordinator for the New York Jets, and the fact that there were far more options at RB at the time.
I would like to just point out that if a guy has less carries than another who had to basically miss 3 1/2 games, you cannot make an intelligent observation about his durability. Think about your reasoning for a second: He's more durable because he was never injured (which is untrue, he was unbelievably injury prone when he first arrived at NU, the main reason he didn't see the field in anyway but special teams.) Wouldn't it stand to reason that B-Jax was never injured because he was on the field far less often, took much less of a pounding because we had Cody Glenn, and carried the ball less times. 32 carries is almost 3 a game and Helu missed 3 1/2 games.
I'm not a Helu lover, or a B-Jax hater. I just like to be objective. Helu hurt his shoulder, played through it with a terribly injured offensive line in front of him and still torched Oklahoma, again. He had no backup for half of the year when Burkhead was raw/injured. Jackson had Marlon Lucky and Cody Glenn. I'm a Packer fan and love B-Jax, but lets not make him more than he was.
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