Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Who's the Next 1000 Yard Rusher for the Bulls?

Can Demetris Murray be the next USF running back to break 1000 yards rushing in a season?
The Bulls have had a few great running backs in their history, but recently a vast majority of the rushing yards have come from the quarterback position with B.J. Daniels and Matt Grothe a few years back.  But many forget, before we had quarterbacks running down the sidelines, the Bulls relied on a heavy rush attack.  As the offense under Todd Fitch evolves and the team looks to become a balanced offense, the need for a big time rusher is there.

The last time the Bulls had a running back go over 1000 yards rushing in a season was Andre Hall back in 2005 when he carried the ball 270 times (record) and 1374 yards.  He carried the rock 210 times in 2004 and gained 1357 yards.  The next 1000 yard rushing at running back (the only other) was back in 1999 with Dyral McMillan with 1017 yards.  After that, it has been Grothe and Daniels racking up the yards.  Grothe carried the ball 198 times in 2007 for 872 yards, taking the ball out of the running backs hands. 

Now granted, the Bulls have had a lot of running backs since Hall and finding that go-to runner in each season has been a challenge, but having a rusher like that in the backfield helps balance an offense and leads to more sustained drives for the offense.  Names like Mike Ford, Darrell Scott, Mo Plancher, have all been in the backfield, but no one has broken the 1000 yard mark since 2005. 

Granted the quarterbacks have taken a lot of carries but there hasn't been a back to do it.  Is there one in this 2012 depth chart that can do it?  Last year, Demetris Murray, the back-up, carried the rock for 527 yards and Daniels had 769 yards rushing, both putting up numbers but not breaking the mark.  The Bulls could potentially find 1000 yards out of Murray, but with speed backs like Shaw and Lamar in the backfield, reaching that number could be hard to do. 

0 Comments:

Post a Comment