The snap to Basanez – gives to Sutton. Fighting hard to get the first down, he’s close. Second effort may have picked it up. And it’s a first down for the Wildcats to the 38-yard line.
The snap to Bacher – gives to Roberson. Big hole, hits the 25-yard-line, and is hit hard from behind.
In listening to the play-by-play, running backs, like most offensive football starlets, command one thing from opposing defenses: attention.
But with the demands of the position, the level of attention running backs get over time is anything but guaranteed. Running backs in the NFL have one of the shortest life spans of any position on the field, hovering around a three-year career on average.
That’s one or two years shorter than these backs will spend at NU. It was a thought that made current senior running back Brandon Roberson take a deep breath and shake his head.
“When I hear something like that, I try not to even think about it,” Roberson said. “That’s very short. I just go out there and have fun every play I can get.”
YOUNG SEEDS
For quarterbacks, the quest is arm strength on a 30-yard throw down a tight seam in the middle of the field. For receivers, the focus might be solid hands on a fade pattern that leaves them outstretched inches from the sideline. But for running backs, the term “every play” means something.
The number of plays NU’s running backs are responsible for exceeds the standard 20-30 carries per game. In seven of 11 games this season, the Wildcats have had a running back notch at least four receptions. It is an element that falls under NU’s primary criterion for recruiting running backs from high school.
“Guys who are productive,” running backs coach Matt MacPherson said. “Guys who can make plays. We’re looking for the fastest guy, who can streak down the field in ‘X’ time.”
MacPherson described making plays as falling under God-given talent, which is something every player must possess for NU to offer him a spot.
But in a spread offense that has averaged 11 more passes (44) than rushes (33) per game this season, having those talents is not enough to be successful. For MacPherson, his watch then enters the realm of playmaking ability.
“Guys who can make cuts,” he said. “Guys who can make people miss. We’re going to have guys down the field that you have to make miss.”
Finding instant playmakers is easier said than done. When Roberson was being recruited, he relied on his football IQ in pinpointing what was most important in making a solid impression to a school.
“It’s how (a player) responds to certain situations,” Roberson said. “It’s how (a player) responds to being down two touchdowns. You put that together with your speed and agility.”
TRAINING CAMP
Upon entering college, players draw on their football experience from the lower levels. For most Division-I prospects, high school stats were in the realm of video game numbers. NU’s trio of backs qualified.
Roberson had 65 career touchdowns for Pearland High School in Texas. Junior Omar Conteh barely missed a Texas state record in 2004, rushing for 2,130 yards and scoring 29 touchdowns in 10 games. Fellow junior Tyrell Sutton was only Mr. Ohio football, setting a state record with 9,410 yards on the ground in four seasons.
High school accolades meant a great deal – until the first day of Camp Kenosha, NU’s preseason training camp in southern Wisconsin. Once August 2005 hit, Mr. Ohio’s fun was over. Sutton’s memories from his first training camp are vivid.
All the way to Kenosha. In the middle of nowhere. Players can’t leave. There are a bunch of people they don’t know. They’re constantly being yelled at by coaches. And not teammates aren’t talking to them.
“Pure hell is the first thing I remember,” Sutton said. “Everyone starts at the bottom. You don’t want to start at the bottom, coming from where everyone recognizes each other.”
But it did not take long for circumstances to shift. An injury to Roberson left the door open for Sutton to make an immediate impact.
Against Ohio University in his collegiate opener, he needed just 17 carries to move himself 104 yards away from the doubts and jeers of training camp.
“Not too many people are out there yelling at you,” Sutton said. “Every single day in practice you do something wrong. Even if you do it right, you do something wrong.”
PASS PROTECTION
While Sutton’s legs were more than prepared for the jump from his Akron high school to the Big Ten, other skills had yet to fall into place.
The tenet of the spread offense is the pass. And with the pass comes the need for protection.
But of all the skills MacPherson looks for in his backs, it’s the ability to step out with a physical presence that takes the most time to develop.
“It’s the toughness in the pocket,” he said. “They see things out there that I don’t see and they can make people miss. But it’s things like protecting the quarterback and footwork – things before you get the football that they need to really work on.”
With the spread offense, progression is supported through the exposure the running backs receive. In a game in which junior quarterback C.J. Bacher throws 50 passes, NU’s running backs will have the responsibility of protecting in a good deal of those scenarios.
Unless it’s a screen call or split-wide package, the job is to be physical. Without the protection of a fullback in a traditional I-formation, the last stand comes from the running back.
“You get to see things up close,” Sutton said. “Being in this program you have to block a lot more. You never go out 1-on-1 for anyone.”
That 1-on-1 blocking scheme was commonplace in high school. At that level, most running backs can focus on pushing up their offensive stats. But that’s not the case beginning in college. Sutton’s 5-foot-9-inch, 190-pound frame reincarnates itself in the position of a 6-foot-3-inch, 300-pound lineman – in a matter of seconds.
“You didn’t have to know what the O-line was doing,” MacPherson said. “Here you have to see the same thing that the offensive center sees. You have to understand what the quarterback’s protection is, and when he checks it, you have to know where your eyes are supposed to go.”
Players are given a little more than 12 weeks to capture that vision. But can the skill grow to be second nature from the start? Not in the eyes of Roberson.
By game 11, the script is clear.
“Game one, you play more hesitantly,” Roberson said. “You’re just trying to pick up protections, which is something I’m comfortable with now. I just go full speed with it, feeling confident in my skills.”
The confidence comes from a central part of the Cats’ gameplanning: film study. For Sutton, his comfort level in seeing things at on-field speed is around the halfway point in the season, where he said the tape starts to slow down significantly.
During the running backs’ film sessions, MacPherson’s notes refer to more than just what types of cuts to make or what blocks the backs may have missed. And to surmise the naysayer, Sutton said a lot of what occurs on the field in protection schemes is a mirror of what happens in practice.
“He will go ‘That’s our drill,'” Sutton said. “‘We just did it right there. You all don’t believe me but my drills do work.’ The things we do in practice just become second nature.”
AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE
With all the work invested in perfecting techniques in practice, the daily grind of the position requires extensive work when the coaches can’t watch.
From the end of spring football in late April until training camp in late August, the task of conditioning is left in the hands of the players themselves.
“You have to train your core and be well balanced,” Sutton said. “You can’t lose anything. You have to stay around the guys and know every style.”
And for running backs, the most important term is running.
“They need to be able to run all day, ” MacPherson said. “They ne
ed to be able to have the ball handed to them 25 times a game, and that requires heavy conditioning.”
But as the pros know, conditioning only goes so far. As Sutton learned firsthand, injuries can wipe out the flow of offseason training in an instant. It’s a cataclysmic problem that extends beyond the scope of NU’s star back missing five games.
Detroit Lions running back Kevin Jones’ illustrious career at Virginia Tech included 3,475 rushing yards and 35 touchdowns in three college football seasons. His ultimate reward was being selected as the 30th overall pick by the Detroit Lions in the 2004 NFL Draft.
His rookie season was pristine – 1,175 yards on the ground – becoming only the third back in Lions’ history to rush for 1,000-plus yards in his rookie campaign. Barry Sanders, a Hall of Famer and the Lions’ all-time leading rusher, who wore No. 20, was the second.
But the third back was a slightly lesser known No. 20 in Detroit sports lore. Running back Billy Sims rebounded to win the 1978 Heisman Trophy, after an uphill battle from injuries that kept him out of his entire freshman year and half of his sophomore year at the University of Oklahoma.
As the first overall pick in the 1980 NFL Draft, Sims was living up to his hype for the Lions. He made the Pro Bowl his first three seasons, while leading Detroit to the playoffs in 1982 and 1983 – the first time that had happened for the Motor City since the birth of the Super Bowl.
Midway through the 1984 season, Sims’ career was over. A severe knee injury left him with 5,106 rushing yards, 42 touchdowns and a mind full of question marks of what could have been.
For Jones, the thought was equally harrowing at the end of his third NFL season, as his year ended with a severe foot injury.
“A running back’s lifespan in this league is what, three years?” Jones told The Detroit Free Press on Oct. 22. “For me, that would have been it.”
Jones has recovered valiantly this season, logging 79 carries in six games to lead the Lions to a 6-2 start. His challenge represents a trend that has grown over the past 10 years among drafted running backs, especially those from the Big Ten.
From 1997 to 2004, 18 running backs were drafted from the conference. Six are no longer in the NFL. Six have rushed for more than 1,500 yards in their career, headed by Penn State standout and 2003 first round draft pick Larry Johnson. Johnson is the only Big Ten back in that time period to average at least 1,000 yards per season.
“I think there are a lot of big, fast angry guys out there that are after (running backs) on every play,” MacPherson said. “Those guys take a beating.”
For the graduating class of 2005, their third NFL season is fully in swing. With his spread offense experience, former NU running back Noah Herron entered Green Bay Packers training camp in 2007 as probably their best pass-blocker. But early in the preseason, the third-year bug hit Herron, as he was placed on injured reserve for the rest of this season with a knee injury.
The story for 2004 alumnus Jason Wright was the opposite. After seeing 14 carries in his first two seasons with the Cleveland Browns, Wright saw a drastic jump in his third season, rushing 62 times for 189 yards in 13 games. His opportunities have continued to rise this season, touching the ball 46 times while playing in all eight games this year.
As unstable as the NFL experience can be, Sutton’s immediate focus is on Saturday’s game with Indiana. His response to the three-year window showed neither fear nor recognition.
“I’m not in the NFL,” he said. “So it doesn’t matter.”
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