Which Auburn RB will be the next Ben Tate?

[Birmingham]

and will it be in 2010?

[AWK]

at least learn to spell correctly...

[The Prowler]

at least learn to spell correctly...

Yeah, B'ham....it's University of Auburn.

IMO, there's not going to be the one RB this upcoming season.  It'll be shared by Mario, Ontarrio, Dyer and Dontae....throw in Newton, Eric Smith, Stallworth and Goodwin.

[Birmingham]

at least learn to spell correctly...

My bad for misspelling Auburn.  Not intentional in the least.

[Birmingham]

Yeah, B'ham....it's University of Auburn.

IMO, there's not going to be the one RB this upcoming season.  It'll be shared by Mario, Ontarrio, Dyer and Dontae....throw in Newton, Eric Smith, Stallworth and Goodwin.

8 running backs?  How many times do you anticipate running the ball per game?  At best case scenario, if there truly isn't a back that stands above the others, each back gets 5-7 touches a game?  I think there will be no more than 3 main backs that will split the touches somewhere around the splits of 15-10-10.  Toss on some touches here and there for a couple other guys.

I think the backs that are sharing those main touches will be:
1)  Mario
2)  Ontarrio
3)  Dyer
... in that order.


Just my opinion, certainly not worthy of placing in the gospel.

[The Prowler]

8 running backs?  How many times do you anticipate running the ball per game?  At best case scenario, if there truly isn't a back that stands above the others, each back gets 5-7 touches a game?  I think there will be no more than 3 main backs that will split the touches somewhere around the splits of 15-10-10.  Toss on some touches here and there for a couple other guys.

I think the backs that are sharing those main touches will be:
1)  Mario
2)  Ontarrio
3)  Dyer
... in that order.

Just my opinion, certainly not worthy of placing in the gospel.

Yes, those will be the main guys...but Newton will have designed runs, Eric Smith will carry the ball some, Dontae might see a couple of touches, as will Travante Stallworth and Antonio Goodwin (Reverses).

[Buzz Killington]

and will it be in 2010?

Not sure, but we're rollin 5 deep at that spot.

[No Huddle]

Mike Ford.

[Jumbo]

Not sure, but we're rollin 5 deep at that spot.

+2 to Boartiz.

[Birmingham]

Not sure, but we're rollin 5 deep at that spot.

Honest question.  Would you take your 5 deep or Alabama's 3 deep of Ingram, Richardson and Lacy?

[jmar]

None of the above because Tate shouldered so much of the load and managed to stay relatively healthy. I think it's rare to see that or expect that from those on hand with far fewer carries by comparison. We knew what we were going to get with Tate. A veteran OL should buy some time until we can consistently produce 150 + YPG.

[jadennis]

8 running backs?  How many times do you anticipate running the ball per game?  At best case scenario, if there truly isn't a back that stands above the others, each back gets 5-7 touches a game?  I think there will be no more than 3 main backs that will split the touches somewhere around the splits of 15-10-10.  Toss on some touches here and there for a couple other guys.

I think the backs that are sharing those main touches will be:
1)  Mario
2)  Ontarrio
3)  Dyer
... in that order.


Just my opinion, certainly not worthy of placing in the gospel.

I wrote some of this in a post a while back about the touches our top five rushers got last year.   It was 569 touches for Tate, McCalebb, Fannin, Smith, and Burns.

The breakdown last year was:

Tate: 283
McCalebb: 111
Fannin: 76
Burns: 61
Smith: 38

I would expect even a few more touches in 2010 since Malzahn will be trying to run even more plays per game.  I would also expect Kodi's carries to diminish greatly, as he's been described strictly as a "receiver" from now on.  The coaches say he "could" see some wild cat duties....which to me means he's probably done with that.

So you can mostly remove him from the rushing stats. However, I expect, if Newton does, in fact, start, that he will get maybe 25-30 designed runs for the year as well.  If we run 2 more plays per game, and half are to these guys, that's about 585 touches for the top five guys.  Take out 30 for Newton, and we're looking at 555 touches for Fannin, Smith, Aycock, McCalebb, and Dyer.

I'm guessing something like this....

Fannin - 190
Aycock - 130
Dyer - 85
Smith - 75
McCalebb - 75

That's just a guess of course and could very well be fluid throughout the year.  Fluid meaning, Dyer's touches could increase throughout the year, as Aycock's decrease.  Or Smith's could increase as McCalebb's decrease.  Who knows. But I think the overall breakdown won't be as weighted to one guy like they were last year with Tate getting almost exactly 50% of the total touches.

[Buzz Killington]

Honest question.  Would you take your 5 deep or Alabama's 3 deep of Ingram, Richardson and Lacy?

For the offense Malzahn runs, I'll take the 5 that are on the Plains. 

[jadennis]

Honest question.  Would you take your 5 deep or Alabama's 3 deep of Ingram, Richardson and Lacy?

You can't really compare our five guys to your three guys.  Your three guys are all asked to do about the same thing.  Malzahn uses McCalebb and Smith in completely different ways in very different plays.  In fact, Smith and Fannin last year had almost a 50/50 split on catches and rushes.  Smith had 20 runs, 18 catches.  Fannin had 34 runs, 42 catches.

Both Ingram and Richardson had nearly a 10 to 1 run-to-catch ratio as for how Alabama got them the ball.  

Another way to show the difference is that Alabama's top 4 rushers last year got 567 touches....nearly the same as the 569 that Auburn's top 5 got.  If we remove both Tate and Ingram from those numbers, since they were used very much the same way and accounted for a similar number of the total touches, that leaves Alabama's other 3 guys with 264 touches, and Auburn's other 4 guys with 284 touches.  

However, of Alabama's 264 touches, only 31 were catches (about 11%).  

Of Auburn's 284 touches, 71 were catches (25%).

I like how Malzahn uses all these guys.  So to answer, I kind of like our 5 guys verses your 3 guys.  Most likely, the production will be very similar in the end, we'll just use 5 guys (in different ways) to get there instead of 3 guys (in nearly the same way) to get there.

Last year, those 4 Alabama guys accounted for 3,453 yards.  Auburn's 5 guys accounted for 3,334 yards.  That's within 3% of each other. 

[Saniflush]

In short I think he is trying to say that it's exciting to talk about "young men" and "touches".

[War Eagle!!!]

I'm guessing something like this....

Fannin - 190
Aycock - 130
Dyer - 85
Smith - 75
McCalebb - 75

That's just a guess of course and could very well be fluid throughout the year.  Fluid meaning, Dyer's touches could increase throughout the year, as Aycock's decrease.  Or Smith's could increase as McCalebb's decrease.  Who knows. But I think the overall breakdown won't be as weighted to one guy like they were last year with Tate getting almost exactly 50% of the total touches.

If McCalebb is in his early season form, I will be disappointed if he only gets 5 or 6 touches per game...

[Buzz Killington]

In short I think he is trying to say that it's exciting to talk about "young men" and "touches".

You said short touches...

[jadennis]

If McCalebb is in his early season form, I will be disappointed if he only gets 5 or 6 touches per game...

I'm torn about McCalebb.  It's hard to know how much of his problem was tha bum ankle and how much was the fact that once we got into  SEC play he just simply wasn't faster than everyone else.  I said after his first two games that I was a little worried because so many of his yards were gained because he simply out ran guys to the corner.  The concern was that once we played SEC defenses, he wouldn't be beating everyone  outside and running away from them.

think of it this way though.  If he's getting 75 touches, then some guys in front of him must really be producing.

[War Eagle!!!]

I'm torn about McCalebb.  It's hard to know how much of his problem was tha bum ankle and how much was the fact that once we got into  SEC play he just simply wasn't faster than everyone else.  I said after his first two games that I was a little worried because so many of his yards were gained because he simply out ran guys to the corner.  The concern was that once we played SEC defenses, he wouldn't be beating everyone  outside and running away from them.

think of it this way though.  If he's getting 75 touches, then some guys in front of him must really be producing.

I think he was not getting to the corner in the SEC because he was hurt. The first couple of games, he looked a lot quicker with his cuts. When he got hurt, it didn't look like he could make anyone miss any more.

I still think he is a player that can make some one miss, and then take it to the house...every time he touches it...

[djsimp]

Tate
Fannin
McCalebb
Smith
Burns

Yards, how the hell am I suppose to know.