[NU Sports] Lack of explosiveness

[bwdolphin146 at yahoo.com]

I agree that the lack of a running game is appalling. 

Oregon had 396 yards rushing yards last night against Southern Cal, just a dozen less than NU's top two rushers (Kafka and Fields) have all season combined. Ouch. 

To my mind big plays don't have to be passes as Evan Royster showed us Saturday. Big running plays out of the spread are very possible as DA2, Wright, Herron and Sutton all showed us. One of the reasons that I liked RW's version of the spread was that he set it up to run the ball first. 

It seems to me over the last couple of seasons NU has gone away from a spread-run first attack to a spread-pass first attack; remember the inexplicable neglect of Sutton for several games? 

I feel this is a design flaw in Coach McCall's offense. The big run plays played a huge role in the success of this offense and I think they need to come back any way McCall can make that happen 

It is surely true that a stud RB would help but Herron wasn't highly thought of as a recruit and we all know how that worked out.  I think this current batch of RBs could produce 50-yard runs. 

The receivers are a different matter; we don't have a true home run threat and we need one badly. Yards after catch are crucial. 

Brad Wilson


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-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan Hodges <jonathanwhodges at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 13:00:22 
To: <bwdolphin146 at yahoo.com>
Cc: <nwu-sports at tssi.com>
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Lack of explosiveness

> I strongly believe this is an aspect of the game that NU has to fix asap.
> The return game produces little. What is NU's longest run of the year?
>

Longest run of the year is 25 yards (both Fields and Persa have matched that
number).


>
> Somehow this needs to be fixed.
>

I agree NU needs more explosiveness, but the problem is that the offense is
designed to move the ball slowly and surely down the field and hit a big
play when it's open.  We've seen some long pass plays work when defenses
focus on the short game, but the problem is that the running game just isn't
there (Kafka is the team's leading rusher) - partly due to the RB
situation/injuries and partly due to the OL's lack of success.

Jonathan