gossamorharpy man, don't get me started. You obviously don't know Nebraska's history at running back, and how depth completes our team. Your knowledge cannot race past 5-10 years of this school's storied history.
Man. Anyone can see our mistake by allowing Aaron Green to leave. At running back, you have to stock up. You have to!!!! Attrition will rock you. It crushed our NU when we had to face Melvin Gordon and Wisconsin a month ago. A banged up Ameer Abdullah was not going to be enough going into that matchup.
Nebraska teams of the past loaded up at running back. We did not let 5-star RBs leave. We didn't!!!!
1980 - Jarvis Redwine, Roger Craig, Craig Johnson. Great depth. No one left or transferred. The team went 10-2.
1981 - Roger Craig, Mike Rozier ... both combined for over 2,000 yards rushing as tailbacks. No one left the team. 9-3.
1982 - Roger Craig and Mike Rozier again. Ditto. 12-1 record. Jeff Smith joined the fine duo.
1983 - Roger Craig, Jeff Smith, Paul Miles ... you got to have depth. Scoring Explosion, 12-1.
Move on ...
1987 - Keith Jones, Ken Clark, Tyreese Knox ... tremendous depth. Keep everyone happy! Tom Osborne did (while Coach Pelini kept Aaron Green on the bench in 2011) Huskers roll to 10-2.
1988 - Ken Clark, Tyreese Knox, Leodis Flowers ... these were tremendously talented runners. Osborne didn't let anyone transfer. It worked. A 11-2 finish and a Big Eight title.
Move on a few more years ...
1991 - Calvin Jones and Derek Brown ... Both wanted to be the MAN. Calvin Jones was a 5 star recruit that wanted to start. He was patient. Derek Brown ran to 1,300 yards while Calvin Jones piled up 900 yards (8.3 yards a carry). Coach Osborne kept them happy, even when the duo felt discontent. 9-2-1 record.
1992 - The "We Backs" Calvin Jones and Derek Brown both ran north of 1,000 yards that season. Jones averaged 7.2 per carry. Brown was a shifty 5-9, 185 pounder who remained elusive while Jones ran a 4.3 forty yard dash and had several 90 yard touchdown runs during his career. 9-3 record.
We had depth back then. Coach Osborne found a way to keep his running backs from leaving. Coach Bo Pelini blew this task. I have been watching TCU's Aaron Green's stat line the entire year knowing fully what a huge, HUGE error this was ... that the current Nebraska had forgotten how the former version of itself had managed to successfully build up its running back depth.