1a + 1b + 1c = 1 or 3/3rds?
domer.mq
Answer: James Aldridge, Armando Allen, Robert Hughes
Question: Who is the starting tailback at the University of Notre Dame?
Last week, Charlie Weis released a depth chart to the media, and, since the Irish finally have a nearly-full roster, most of the “OR”s are gone. You know, like our starting offensive line last year was “this guy OR this guy OR this guy.” But the one rather conspicuous spot on the roster where the “OR” remained was at tailback. Many (most?) Irish fans are really pretty okay with that. After all, these 3 young men seem to have a ton of talent, all three were highly recruited coming out of highschool, and usually when the subject comes up, someone inevitably mentions how wonderful it is that each one has a “unique” running style that should help give defenses “fits.” Also inevitably, someone brings up the term “stable,” as in “stable of running backs.” The term evokes a depth chart full of “thoroughbreds” ready to dash down the field while overwhelming the competition. But if you’ve got 3 “starters,” do you have one? How successful are teams that utilize such “stables,” and how are successful teams currently running the ball?
To find some answers, I took a look at the final AP Poll for the 2007/2008 season, and broke down their rushing statistics and analyzed their “stables” - the top 3 rushers. I did much the same thing with the top 25 rushing teams in football for the 2007 season so see how those guys make the ground game so effective as well. Please note: Many of these teams have more than 3 players with rushing statistics. Since we’re talking about the Irish’s three “#1″ guys, I decided to focus only on the top-3 of each team. Percentages, totals, and all other math are based on only the top 3 rushers of each team.
Here’s what I found. You can check out the spreadsheet below, but I really recommend you click here (pop-up) so you can see the full sheet. There’s a lot going on here.
I can’t recall, but I’m not sure Weis has completely committed to using a 3-man approach to the rushing game this year. In the pros, he’s used rushing platoons and he’s used more “primary” tailback approaches. He’s also used a lot of situational personnel packages. It goes with his usual M.O. of doing whatever he thinks will work right now rather than sticking to one formula year-in and year-out. But let’s just consider the breakdown of rushing attempts by ND’s stable last year, and go from there to get a sense of how it compared to successful teams in 2007.
In 2007, ND’s “3 horsemen” shared rushing responsibilities in the following way.
- James Aldridge: 121 rushes, 463 yards, 3.83 yds/carry, 47% of carries, 42% of yards.
- Armando Allen: 86 rushes, 348 yards, 4.05 yds/carry, 33% of carries, 31% of yards.
- Robert Hughes: 53 rushes, 294 yards, 5.55 yds/carry, 20% of carries, 27% of yards.
And all told, that resulted in a performance by our “#1 back” that looks like this: 260 rushes, 1105 yards gained, 4.25 yards per carry.
It’s hard to tell how much planning went into this sort of breakdown. For one, Aldridge was the more veteran player over Allen and Hughes, so his extra carries make sense. But later in the season, Hughes sure seemed to be the feature back. Aldridge’s injuries certainly skew things as well. But let’s just say, for argument’s sake, that the “goal” breakdown that Weis may have in mind for his stable is a 1a back with 45-50% of the carries, and 2 “1b” backs with anywhere between 20% and 30% of the carries each. In essence, you’d have a “feature back” that only does about half the work.
Looking at the AP Top 25, we find only three teams with a similar formula in 2007, but those teams are pretty good company: Southern Cal, Florida, and Auburn. At this point, I’m tempted to point out that Florida’s “stable” includes a QB, and thus isn’t really the typical “stable,” but Tim Tebow is far from a typical QB, and the Florida system certainly depends on the QB being a running back. Where things really get mucked up, looking at Florida, is their #2 running back is, technically, a Wide Receiver: Percy Harvin. No wonder Meyer hates his running backs.
So we’ve really got just 2 teams in the AP Top 25 that follow the Irish’s formula: Southern Cal with a RB workload split of about 50/25/25 and Auburn with a workload split of about 50/30/20. These are certainly great teams to emulate in the running game, but neither one is a top 25 rushing teams. Southern Cal came in as the 27th ranked rushing team while Auburn came in at #53.
What about the top rushing teams though? How many of them follow the Irish formula? Well, only 1 really comes close: Air Force, and while Air Force’s offense was a bit more “modernized” than their typical triple-option of previous years, they do still run the option, and their split is 49/23/29. So it’s hard to say the Irish formula really applies here.
Of the AP Top 25, the average “lead rusher” of each team carries the ball 54% of the time. Of the top 25 rushing teams, that number is 55.38. So the prescription for some improvement in the Irish running game at least seems to be: pick a feature back, particularly if you don’t run the spread or the option, and you’d like to be a Top 25 team.
Lots of random bits that I can’t put together coherently:
- The Irish stable rushed for 1105 yards in 2007. If you think of all of them as our #1 back, that’s not a bad number at all. The problem is, there were a lot of #1 rushers for other teams encased in a singular body that out-do that performance. In the AP T-25, there were 12 such players. And Knowshon Moreno, of Georgia, did it without starting the first 3 games of the season.
- The average yards/carry of each AP T-25 stable was 5.18. that’s nearly a yard better than the Irish stable’s 4.25.
- Average yards/carry of the #1 rusher for top 25 rushing teams was 5.69. That’s nearly a yard and a half better than the Irish.
- The average yards for the season of AP T-25 #1 rushers was 7 yards better than the total for Allen, Hughes, and Aldridge.
- If you want to be in the AP T-25, it’s a good idea to have a top 25 rushing team. 7 of the AP T-25 were in the top 25 rushing teams last season. But, you can be in the top 50 of rushing teams and still have a really good shot at the AP T-25. 16 such teams did that last year.
- Still the average rushing rank of the AP T-25 wasn’t stellar: 46.76. Good, but not stellar. And even the top 10’s average rush rank was only a “very good” 37.27.
- Having one of the best rushers in the land is quite helpful, but not as helpful as you might think. Of the AP T-25 teams that do have a top 25 rusher, their average rank was only 17.86.
- Of the top 25 rushing teams, only 5 had a “#1 rusher” with less than 46% of the workload. 17 of the top 25 rushing teams had a lead rusher with over 50% of the workload. 15 of those teams had lead rushers with at least 55% of the workload.
- The entire stable of AP T-25 rushers includes 60 running backs, 7 wide receivers, and 6 QBs.
- All but one of the AP Top Ten (Va Tech) were within the top 40 of rushing.
- Notre Dame ranked just 1 spot lower on rushing game than AP #19 Hawaii and actually beat out #22 Texas Tech by 4 spots. Of course, those 2 teams both threw the ball at least 70% of the time.
- Only 7 of the NCAA’s top 25 rushers were on teams that ended up in the final AP T-25.
- According to weird NCAA stats, where sacks count as rushes, ND ran the ball about 53% of the time. The AP T-25 ran the ball, on average, about 54% of the time. Of course, that includes Hawaii and Texas Tech again, and nobody gave up the # of sacks that the Irish did.
See any other trends or statistical weirdness I forgot to mention? Have any thoughts of the benefits of a platoon system versus a feature back?
Frankly, I’d like to see 1 guy get 55-60% of the carries this year, and if that guy isn’t pretty clear by game 3, I’ll be worried about the success of the 2008 Irish squad.
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17 Comments
Speaking as someone who watched one back (Hart) get 85-90% of his team’s carries when healthy over the past few years, I think there is both good and bad to haivng a rotation.
I don’t heave the spreadsheet to back this up, but just like the QB there is something to be said for a RB finding a rythm. When your top RB is on his game, turning out big gains again and again (see Chris Perry, UM-MSU 2003) it can be a thing of beauty. However, this also leaves the other RB’s sitting on the bench and in the midwest, often getting cold, and in the event of an injury it can take a while to get the running game going. You have to get the backups some carries but if you have the star RB, he has to get 80% of the meaningful carries at least.
I would also argue that Weis, in either the pros or college, prove that he can develop a great rushing attack consistently as a part of his system.
Nice work pulling all that together. Based upon what I saw last year, Hughes should be the man. Armando went down on contact. Hughes and Aldridge are similar backs, but Hughes has better vision to see the hole and better feet getting through it. Aldridge MIGHT have better top-end speed, but you rarely see it because he doesn’t often get a clean break through the line.
DTK,
I’ve always thought, particularly with Michigan (sucks!)’s zone scheme, that having one back heavily featured is best. The OL get accustomed to sort of knowing where a TB is, particularly outside of the tackles, and it changes a lot of things with regard to the sort of angle you take in your blocks and when you can release to the 2nd level, etc…
OC,
I would have to agree with you. I’d go with Hughes first as well. I need to go look back at his numbers though. Seems like a lot of his yards all came from about 5 carries. That’s a tough position to be in. He can get big gains, but doesn’t usually score off of them. And then 85% of the other time he’s only gaining a few yards. I’ll have to go look and see if I’m right.
OC, just did some quick figures. Sort of interesting about Hughes. And Encouraging.
Really, Hughes had 3 games that most ND fans look to as flashes of what could be: MSU, Duke, Stanford.
For the MSU game, he had 33 yards on 6 carries, but what got our attention was a 17 yards rumble. Against Duke, he had 115 on 17 carries and he popped off a long run of 33. And at Stanford, he had that 45 yarder as part of a 18 carry, 139 yard day.
What had concerned me is his “big play” potential looks nice, but he doesn’t have the top speed to score on most of them, and I was worried his regular carries wouldn’t be enough in case he didn’t manage a big play. Well, in those 3 games, if you take away his big play in each one, you get a 3.2 yds/carry avg against MSU, a 4.8 avg against Duke, and a 5.4 avg against Stanford.
That’s more encouraging to me. And I think his “usual” carries will average around 4.5-5 yards this season. Couple that with his occasional big plays, and you’ve got a really nice feature back.
I can’t back up my assertions with any statistical analysis, but I feel like the Aldridge-Hughes comparison is very unfair to Aldridge. Hughes got most of his carries in much easier games than did Aldridge. If we had seen Aldridge more against Duke and at all Stanford, who knows what we might have gotten from him? I would be surprised if, come September 6, James Aldridge doesn’t have this position pretty well sewn up. And I think he offers everything Hughes has and more, and he will give us a better chance to win.
I’d say expect our “stable” to have a split of like 50-40-10. The success of the running game falls more on the broad shoulders of our 300-lb linemen, though.
BJG,
The tough thing for Aldridge is he seems to get knicked up a lot for a “power back.” Don’t get me wrong, if we could have him be the feature this year, and hughes after James is done at ND, that would be wonderful. I’m cheering for the guy. I just think he gets a bit banged up, and at the Spring game, it looked like Hughes was passing the eyeball-test better than James.
DTK, regarding your comment, “I would also argue that Weis, in either the pros or college, prove that he can develop a great rushing attack consistently as a part of his system.”
Firstly, I think a couple of words got left out of that accidentally.
Secondly, assuming you meant “Weis… has yet to prove…”, I think Weis’s 2004 New England offense is proof that he can design an offense that features a power running attack.
Wednesday, you are correct I did leave out the “has yet to prove”. But one word I did not leave out is “consistently”, one year of success with the gournd game does not change that.
When I watch ND play, specifically when Weis was calling plays, I got the sense that he did not have a lot of patience with the running game.
Domer,
Actually the UM zone scheme was supposed to remove that dependancy on a featured back, it was supposed to be like the Denver Broncos’ running scheme. The RB’s would have to fit a certain mould: quick feet, good vision, strong cutback ability to play within the system.
DTK,
Then why the dependency on Hart?
Also, the Broncos always have a feature back. They just change it every year so they don’t have to pay anyone. Seasonal interchangeability is different from in-game interchangeability.
They depended on Hart bc Hart embodied all that Michigan stands for: Sucking.
Domer,
Mike Hart, although a great talent and one of my favority all time UM players, was also Mike Debord and Lloyd Carr’s security blanket.
Also, remember, I did say I was in favor of the featured back, it can come with a big downside. Hart is a perfect example of this, when he was hurt watching UM run the ball was painful.
It’s interesting to hear you say that, DTK, as Brown and Minor had serviceable yds/carry averages. Hart’s avg. wasn’t overwhelmingly better than theirs. How do you feel about the new RBs in the new system?
Domer, those stats are a little misleading, Brown and Minor both had huge games against Minnesota. If you take those totals away, they only had 1 100 yd game between them (Brown vs. Illinois). So they are still not exactly proven, and they both also had fumble problems during the year. If there is one thing LC did not tolerate, it was fumbles. He would bury guys on the bench for that and I think it hurt CB’s and Minor’s development a bit. You could tell they were both pressing at times last year. The other thing Hart had over them was consistency, even on bad runs it was rare to see Hart get less than 3 yards.
I think both of them could do well in the new system, RichRod’s offense does feature a strong running game. Here is how I would break down all of UM’s RB’s for this year
Minor - starter, plays 60-70% of snaps
Brown - may not “start” but he will see action at RB, Slot, and maybe even QB. Needs to stay healthy and stop breaking fingers and wrists.
Grady - plays the big RB role, I guess the best comparison would be Owen Schmitt from WVU last year, probably won’t see the field until ND game or after
Sam McGuffie - incoming frosh, youtube legend, probably gets 10-12 carries a game by the end of the year
Mike Shaw - incoming frosh, listed as a WR (slot receiver), but I think he will get a few rushes per game
This offense is all about getting the ball to players “in space”, so guys like Brown and McGuffie will probably become the new standard for a UM RB. the bigger guys like Grady and Minor serve a role but I am not sure if RichRod will continue to bring in that type of RB as much in the future. The biggest key to the running game for UM this year, getting something of a downfield passing attack with a new QB, because there is absolutely no rush threat from either of the two probable starters. Otherwise everyone will play 8-9 up near the line and slow down the RB’s. This offense works well, if you have either a good passing game to go with the rush or a good running QB who can keep LB’s and safties honest.
Ah. Okay, DTK. I didn’t really look at game stats.
Maybe I glanced over this in the post, but what makes Navy the number one rushing stable from last year. I see no discernible statistic posted that the rankings are based on, nor a final score, if you will, of criteria and weight used to measure these teams. Seems that you could make a case that a number of teams had better stats.
Wait, Navy probably has like 8 guys that got significant carries. I get it now.
Yeah, Brian, I was just looking at everything in the context of top-3 rushers for each team since we’ve got our “3 horses” for ND. The rushing contribution list for Navy is a mile long.
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