Mikale Wilbon

brophog said:
They all sucked under Riley.  

The span you’re referring to was a 3 game span that included Rutgers and Illinois in which we ran the same play 47 times in a row because Riley and his staff never made it to the second page of the run play sheet.
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He played very well against Wisconsin. 

Correction, it was not against the meat of our schedule but that Wiscy game sticks out to me. Reason one, their defense was pretty salty. Reason two, the bright lights were on and performed well. From that loss on, the whole team (staff included) quit. 

I gave a shoutout to Devine earlier, and I know we can all say that we are very proud of him. I think he would've been an all american had he played behind wisconsins oline. That is not a guy you want to see at the second level, and he proved it. 

 
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Everyone was wrong about a lot of things. Even those of us who were rooting for Ozigbo did not expect him to have the season he had. No one expected Bell to be a bust. No one expected to go 4-8. We are all going to be wrong about a lot of things with the 2019 season as well. 

BUT, in this thread and especially in the "Running Back room" thread, a lot of people seemed especially eager to bury Ozigbo on the depth chart and discount positive things that were said about him. Even without his stellar senior year, his work and reliability (compared to the rest of the craptastic running game during the Riley era) deserved better treatment than what he was getting in pre-season talk on HB. I imagine that all Ozigbo had to do to motivate himself up before each practice last fall was read Mavric's posts.

 
gobiggergoredder said:
Been getting beat up praising Ozigbo for 3 years.  I might need to have rotator cuff surgery.
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Honestly, I don't know if there was a lot of Ozigbo's play worth praising prior to 2018.  He showed moments of strong play, but due to him being overweight, he was slow, he didn't pick up his feet very well going through the hole, and he wasn't able to make much out of plays if the immediate hole wasn't there.

Ozigbo deserves all the credit he got in 2018.  He got himself in great shape, he got faster, and he was a much improved back.  If you were able to predict that based on his fairly average play in 2015-17, then good for you.

 
ColoradoHusk said:
Honestly, I don't know if there was a lot of Ozigbo's play worth praising prior to 2018.  He showed moments of strong play, but due to him being overweight, he was slow, he didn't pick up his feet very well going through the hole, and he wasn't able to make much out of plays if the immediate hole wasn't there.

Ozigbo deserves all the credit he got in 2018.  He got himself in great shape, he got faster, and he was a much improved back.  If you were able to predict that based on his fairly average play in 2015-17, then good for you.
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Or due to getting tackled taking a hand off.

 
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I was a big Ozigbo supporter through his first few years, and I also thought he might be our best back overall, but I never seen this year coming. It's probably a combination of being misused by the previous staff, his ability to get in  better shape and get himself faster in 2018, and Frost's scheme.

 
gobiggergoredder said:
Been getting beat up praising Ozigbo for 3 years.  I might need to have rotator cuff surgery.
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Question for you, and I want you to try and be honest even if it hurts your argument.

Did you really WANT Ozigbo to be special because of his work ethic and toughness?

Or 

Did you think he WAS going to be special and he was just in a bad offense?

If it is the last one, do you think without the S&C program in place he could have succeeded like he did in this offense?

My whole point with the above is that I dont think many questioned his toughness or work ethic, I just didnt think one year of a S&C program would suddenly make him elusive like it did. Maybe having more open holes was a big part but his ability grew and I just didnt think it was possible for a guy to grow that much from his JR to SR year...maybe Fresh to Soph but not year 3. 

 
ColoradoHusk said:
Honestly, I don't know if there was a lot of Ozigbo's play worth praising prior to 2018.  He showed moments of strong play, but due to him being overweight, he was slow, he didn't pick up his feet very well going through the hole, and he wasn't able to make much out of plays if the immediate hole wasn't there.

Ozigbo deserves all the credit he got in 2018.  He got himself in great shape, he got faster, and he was a much improved back.  If you were able to predict that based on his fairly average play in 2015-17, then good for you.
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This mirrors my opinion very closely. @B.B. Hemingway and I were having a good conversation/debate about this in a status update today.

I was one of those people who felt the addition of Bell and MW would mean Ozigbo was going to be third string, maybe second string at best. I doubted him, but, his body of work supported that viewpoint. His YPC average was pretty meh, he didn't have notable lateral quickness, wasn't great in pass pro, lacked some explosion/elusiveness and was fairly inconsistent. I think there were a lot of reasons for the results to that point - scheme, bad coaching and him not being in optimal physical condition - and it's a credit to him and this staff that he's now in the position he's in. I don't think any of us anticipated Zig being considered a mid-round NFL draft pick like he is right now. Most of us probably would've said UFA at best.

I think it's 100% OK to have been somewhat questioning of him early on and accepting of his skills now. A lot of things changed for the better and I think that's OK.

 
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