2024 Fall Camp Notes - Running Backs
- Thread starter Mavric
- Start date
admo
New member
This is most def an interesting group.
Emmett Johnson is probably the season starter and will be going into his 3rd year on campus (redshirt plus last year). He had 5 straight games of 50 rushing yards including 2 games going over 70. I would assume he has added a little more power to his frame. I thought he did a great job and is the best of the group. But it's not exactly a great RB group.
R.Johnson is coming off injury. He's still quick and elusive. Tough back for his size. And it's his 6th year.
Gabe Ervin is coming off injury again. Missed Spring game. Rhule confirmed that he is "full go" for the season. Wonder if he will see much playing time or what kind of impact he will have. 3 years and 3 injuries.
Dante Dowdell transferred from Oregon. A bit bigger than Gabe, he had just 17 rushes through 6 games last year as a rookie (true frosh).
Kwinten Ives - 6-2 190 showed some positives with limited touches last year. Could become a factor among the top 3 or 4 guys sharing the ball.
Marrice Mazzccua is a SR from Philly with mostly DII experience. Just 5'8 and similar to R.Johnson.
What are yalls thoughts? Do you feel good about our backs or unsure?
Emmett Johnson is probably the season starter and will be going into his 3rd year on campus (redshirt plus last year). He had 5 straight games of 50 rushing yards including 2 games going over 70. I would assume he has added a little more power to his frame. I thought he did a great job and is the best of the group. But it's not exactly a great RB group.
R.Johnson is coming off injury. He's still quick and elusive. Tough back for his size. And it's his 6th year.
Gabe Ervin is coming off injury again. Missed Spring game. Rhule confirmed that he is "full go" for the season. Wonder if he will see much playing time or what kind of impact he will have. 3 years and 3 injuries.
Dante Dowdell transferred from Oregon. A bit bigger than Gabe, he had just 17 rushes through 6 games last year as a rookie (true frosh).
Kwinten Ives - 6-2 190 showed some positives with limited touches last year. Could become a factor among the top 3 or 4 guys sharing the ball.
Marrice Mazzccua is a SR from Philly with mostly DII experience. Just 5'8 and similar to R.Johnson.
What are yalls thoughts? Do you feel good about our backs or unsure?
I am I
New member
I’m totally unsure. We have a slasher, a basher, and some nice fits. But we don’t have a guy who can house it on any given play if things open up.
There is some experience and depth in the group which is nice. However, talking about 50 & 70 yd games is nothing to brag about.
We ran the ball well last year including runs by QBs and the o-line improved over the season.
But, per as usual…it comes down to o-line blocking well, dedication to having a running game, not fumbling the damn ball, and staying healthy. Lastly, any improvement in the passing game can get the D to back off and open some lanes up.
I’m not drooling over any of our RBs but I think a combo of 2-3 could shake out to be pretty nice. Johnson, Dowdell, Ervin could be nice. If Ives has some demon in him, he could be pretty good.
There is some experience and depth in the group which is nice. However, talking about 50 & 70 yd games is nothing to brag about.
We ran the ball well last year including runs by QBs and the o-line improved over the season.
But, per as usual…it comes down to o-line blocking well, dedication to having a running game, not fumbling the damn ball, and staying healthy. Lastly, any improvement in the passing game can get the D to back off and open some lanes up.
I’m not drooling over any of our RBs but I think a combo of 2-3 could shake out to be pretty nice. Johnson, Dowdell, Ervin could be nice. If Ives has some demon in him, he could be pretty good.
How many times did we see a back get a 7,8,9 yard run but he got first contact at the line of scrimmage and broke 3 tackles to get there. How many times did we use unbalanced sets or spread the field to generate opportunities for our RBs. We did some of that for the QBs and had a few big runs off of it, but opportunities were really rare last year for the RBs.
One of most under the radar comments of the offseason was Rhule acknowledging in his summer press conference that we can't keep running into all of these stacked boxes. That, to me, was the theme of the spring. Better spacing, better width, and getting the RBs involved in the screen game, the pass game, and better odds in the running game. We didn't do them any favors last year, everything was tough yards. We're looking to get them more opportunities for explosive plays and obviously they have to take advantage of that.
At the college level, because the wide hashmarks make the field play effectively wider, width is often times more important than depth. Iowa vs Tennessee in their bowl game is a great example. Iowa is a very LB dominant scheme, but Tennessee likes to keep their outside WR well outside of the numbers. This massive width to their offense meant Iowa was generally relegated to only a 6 man box, even when in a single high safety look. Tennessee ran for 232 on them that day. They simply dictated where Iowa was allowed to be positioned and that greatly benefited both their RBs and QBs in the run game.
Undone
New member
Good stuff.
When you throw the quick, wide passes to the sideline to a tall receiver who can just take a couple of burst steps and get four yards and you do it over and over again it really helps also. It seems like that's what we're going to do.
Hopefully it doesn't get too predictable.
As you said, pre-snap spacing is big. And it just can't be as hard as our program has made it.
floridacorn
New member
I think this unit will be solid, but unspectacular, & agree on Johnson. He ran with more juice in the spring game. Dowdell and Ives look a half step slow to me, kind of like Johnson did last season. It's hard to predict how Ervin looks following a hip surgery, but if he's healthy he's a solid 1/1b with Johnson, & Rhule seems convinced Ramir is a legit 3rd down/change of pace back. This is more like an Iowa backfield than Wisconsin, but that's progress, and it's possible Dowdell needed a summer, and not a season.
ZRod
Active member
I know a lot of folks around here who are going to absolutely looooove that scheme... /s
This should feel less forced and more organic. We saw and heard a lot in the spring about the QBs having more freedom at the line so if they see off coverage outside they can flip it out there. A lot of the screen game is part of the RPOs, including some TE screens. We ran a nice little play in the spring game that is effectively this offense's version of a read option. Instead of isolating an edge defender for the QB to either hand off or keep, we isolated an edge to either hand off or flip out to a TE.
In the spring game it only got a couple of yards the first time because the Safety instantly recognized it and made the play, but the second time the Safety stayed back and it got about 10. That's a pretty easy way to convert short yardage, it moves backers and edges around to help the running game, and once you put it on film a few times you can have the WR walk up like he's going to block only to blow by his defender as the Safety thinks you're just dumping it to the TE again.
runningblind
New member
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Undone
New member
Yep, agreed. Actually I'm not even really confident on "solid" if I'm being honest.
The emphasis with this group has to be on ball security. After that, I'm just hoping we have one guy who can see any sort of a hole and hit that gap hard.
