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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 3559, member: 289"] But the top offensive teams don’t just have one runner or one receiver who had a big year. Nevada got 1206 yards rushing from their quarterback to go with 1610 from their top tailback. Auburn got 1473/1078. Wisconsin was four yards away from having three 1000 yard rushers. Arkansas had four guys with more catches than Chew. Boise State had two guys with 71 catches. Oklahoma State had a player with 68 catches and one with 111. Oklahoma had one player with 61 catches, one with 71 and one with- 131! Do we have other players who could work in tandem with Bailey and Chew to put up big numbers? Maybe, although probably not on the level of those teams. Technically, Bailey’s back-up or partner at tailback, (SU, like most schools likes to alternate them so the #1 guy is really #1A and the other guy #1B), is Prince-Tyson Gulley, who like Bailey, is a scat-back type at 5-9 181 except that having been in the program two years longer, “Ant” has added a lot more bulk and strength, (5-7 201). Ideally you want the 1B guy to be a different style of runner than the 1A guy, as Bailey was with Carter last year. For that reason, the thinking is that we may see more of the wonderfully named, (yes, even more wonderful than “Prince-Tyson Gully”), Adonis Ameen-Moore, (he’s built like Adonis, there’s more of him and he’s mean). Carter was 5-10 225 as a senior. Moore as a freshman is 5-10 244. Carter was, as they say “ripped”. We don’t known whether Moore needs to lose a little baby fat or is a monster but people are talking about Ron Dayne, who was 5-10 250 and became a Heisman Trophy winner and the NCAA’s all-time leading rusher or Jerome Bettis who was 5-11 252 and ran for 13,662 yards in the NFL. But we don’t need Moore to be Dayne or Bettis or even Carter. We just need him to be a change of pace from Bailey, who will be the star runner this year. Gulley will probably fill Bailey’s role of last year next year, with Moore being the new Carter, if things work out. Gully got sidetracked when he got stabbed at a party over the summer but the wounds were apparently minor as he’s back practicing with the team has looked OK. He also had something of a fumbling problem last year but is the quickest of the tailbacks. Jerome Smith (5-10 213) is another power option and Stephen Rene, (5-7 176) a water-sprite of a back. I’m a long-time advocate of the two back backfield with both backs being offensive threats in their own right. I grew up with Nance and Csonka next to Floyd Little and as late as our undefeated 1987 season, Darryl Johnston ran for 564 yards from the fullback position, including a memorable touchdown run in the West Virginia game which made it easier for Robert Drummond to run for 747 yards and Michael Owens for 531. That team ran for 211 yards per game. Last year Delone Carter ran for 1233 yards but the team only averaged 140 yards rushing a game. Bailey ran for 554 and the rest of the team 110 yards, (35 if you include quarterback sacks). Of the players listed as “fullbacks“, Adam Harris carried the ball for 21 yards and his back-up, Tomba Kose, never carried it at all. Cater and Bailey would have made an ideal fullback-halfback combination (and Bailey would still have been an excellent pass receiver: he had 35 catches as the 1B guy last year) and Moore and Bailey would have been a potentially great combination this year. But we won’t see it. Harris and Kose are back this year and we’ll see them- blocking- if there’s a fullback on the field at all. [/QUOTE]

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