Illinois Hokie's Recent Comments

Touche. Like I said somewhere else, I'm driven by stats as a football fan. We haven't played the stiffest competition, but we've played remarkably similar competition to what we played through the first four games of 2014, and so far YPC by running backs (which I define as tailbacks and fullbacks) is at 5.0 ypc, up from 4.2 ypc after four games last year.

Yes, it could totally be the O line. I also don't care if it's the O line. I care that the numbers are better. That facet of our offense has improved, and the improvement is significant. O line, running backs, some combination of both, whatever. It's better. I'm happy. I care about gaining yards and scoring points. That makes me smile on Saturdays.

So when I say the running backs are showing marked improvement, I just mean that their YPC is up by a noticeable amount. The run game has a pulse. That's what's being overshadowed.

Yeah, it's been an ongoing theme of Shane's tenure. In fact, it predates Shane. We were having this exactly same conversation in '09 and '10 about Darren Evans, Ryan Williams and David Wilson all getting rotated in and out constantly. I think Shane picked a lot of that mentality up from Billy Hite, because I think for Shane's first couple of years, Billy was the power behind the throne as Shane found his sea legs in his new job.

Beyond any conversation of distribution of carries, honestly, I'm ready for Shane to leave the program. I think his presence is a net negative. He has cooled in recruiting, he is not producing elite backs (though the talent he's had to work with might have something to do with that) and his coaching style seems to detract and distract. The running backs are showing marked improvement last year to this, but that's completely overshadowed by the perceived mismanagement of the tailback stable.

...that is more than Motley runs, Motley runs again, Motley passes.

If that's what the situation calls for and can win us the game, then I hope that's exactly what Scot calls.

If that happens, this is a totally different conversation. Right now my point is we've basically had one game where JCC and Trey looked terrible, and it seems like the criticism of the rotation exploded immediately thereafter. That seems really reactionary to me. Backs have bad games. It's rare that two have a bad game at the same time, but not unheard of. If JCC and Trey post similar numbers against Pitt that they did against ECU, then it's time to rework the rotation. And if Shane refuses to, then we have a conversation about his incompetence.

For all the talk about platooning the tailbacks, it seems like a lot of people have forgotten that we basically did have a two back rotation last season. Injuries just continuously changed which two backs were getting the carries. Now everyone is up in arms because we're seeing even distribution among three backs. But to risk sounding like a broken record, that had been working through the first three games.

I totally agree with you. If Trey and JCC struggle against Pitt and we see the same 1/3 distribution across the three backs, this becomes a whole different issue. For now, I'm holding.

Heading into Pitt, it's feeling more and more like this one will be on Motley and Lefty to win for us. I don't expect a strong rebound from the defense against a team that has traditionally mauled us up front. I'd also bet the house we see Voytik at some point, after the running yards he put up last year. I hope Lefty has a solid game plan.

I'm buying on Ole Miss just on the merit of High Freeze. He might be my favorite P5 coach. Dude knows his shit.

Ha! That was the first observation I made when I looked at CWbtJ's chart.

Last season there were eight FBS teams that averaged over 300 rushing yards per game. In 2008, there were zero.

Whatever the trend is, its working as far as the numbers go.

First, this is awesome. Thank you.

Second, all of Shai's carries have come in garbage time, and it looks like he's done for the year. He hasn't been a part of the meaningful rotation, and with the injury update today, he won't be.

So we're one of eight ACC schools to not have a back getting at least 50% of the carries, but one of only two to not have one back getting at least 40% of the carries. That tells me we're following the standard model maybe just a little too well. I'd kind of like a 45/40/15 or 45/35/20 split.

Here's the problem. The knee jerk reaction is JCC should see a reduction in carries. But he turned in his best performances last season when he was the unquestioned feature back. Maybe he needs that level of carries to hit his stride. Flow and feel might just be of premium importance with him. Who here wouldn't take JCC's performance in the last four games last year?

I also get the sentiment that McMillian should be the feature back. But I can understand the hesitation to put too much on the redshirt freshman too soon, especially since he isn't a natural tailback. He's had two seasons as a tailback, with Shane as his position coach that whole time. Those of you who are critical of Shane let that sink in for a second. The sum total knowledge McMillian has about being a tailback comes from a running backs coach who is arguably not very good at his job. Might be early to pencil him in as the savior of the backfield. There's a chance we're using Travon exactly how he would be most effective.

Ultimately, I don't know what we should do. I'm a stats-driven football fan, and I know that statistically speaking, what we had been doing with the tailbacks had been working up until this past Saturday, so I can't fault Shane for what he's done with the rotation. If he continues this distribution of carries should JCC and Trey both continue to average less than two yards per carry, then I'll obviously take issue with it. Right now, though, all the tailback rotation angst seems reactionary. I would like at least a two game sample. Aberrations happen in statistics all the time. Two bad performances should be viewed as the start of a trend. So the rushing game against Pitt will be very important in deciding what changes if any should be made to the rotation.

Thanks again for doing this. Perspective is the most valuable thing in statistics.

80%? Damn, dude, that sounds high. I'd be worried about November burnout.

I think part of this is stemming from the fact that we simply aren't running our tailbacks a ton to begin with. Motley is by far our primary ball carrier at over 11 carries per game. Factor him out, we've got about 33.5 carries per game to distribute. Figure in Rogers getting a couple of touches a game, jet sweeps and garbage time carries by the backups, we're left with about 21 carries per game to give our tailbacks. That number is small enough to make even a two back rotation feel like the backs aren't getting utilized enough. With a three back rotation it's that much worse.

To be clear, I would personally prefer a two back rotation, with those two backs getting about 90% of the carries and not worrying so much about the division between them. But again, who do you bench out of our three back rotation? JCC and Trey stunk it up equally badly against ECU. Benching one over the other is unfair, plus benching over a single game performance is overly reactionary. Meanwhile there's McMillian, who shows all the upside in the world but is two seasons away from having been a QB his whole career. There's some trust issues there with the coaches for some reason, but he's been good enough to earn a fair share of the carries. You definitely don't bench him, but do you make him a feature back when you're worried about his development as a tailback?

There's no categorically wrong answer here. If JCC and/or Trey continue to struggle like they did against ECU, you demote them down the depth chart. That might wind up with McMillian as the feature back out of necessity. But this isn't as cut and dried as a lot of people are presenting it, is my general argument.

Coupled with the fact that thus far the defense is pretty much blowing goat, statistically speaking.

If the offense is going to take the next step from top 40 to top 20

I... Just... Give me a second. I need to savor that sentence a moment.

God, that was good.

Okay, what were we talking about? Oh, yeah. No. JCC and Trey aren't great backs. Never have been, never will be. I totally agree that their good production has been due to the O line improvement. But because of that, both have been posting numbers above last season, and numbers that any realistic fan shouldn't take issue with. Statistically, McMillian has been the superior back, but obviously there is some sort of trust issue with him.

Is McMillian a great back? Who knows. We'll see. The point is, our three back platoon has been productive. Are we gonna call the running game overhaul complete? Nope. Miles to go before we sleep and all that. But people are acting like the rotation has been a disaster. We've had one bad game in regards to tailback running.

PS, why did the O line have so much trouble opening holes against ECU, by the way? Do you think it was the weather, or was ECU doing something schematically our other opponents haven't done?