My thesis is simple: Too much praise and blame is assigned to the offensive line and play-calling while not enough (especially blame) at the running back position when things go wrong or right.
No other position has been subject to so much hyperbole and shallow commentary, all while being attached to the success of other teammates blocking for them. Luckily, the analytics age and the evolving role of the running back (especially at the NFL level) are changing the way we rate the position.
A little over a year ago during their “Running Back Week” celebration The Ringer broke down the 5 most essential running back traits. Granted, they are looking at the more pass-heavy NFL but many of the principles still apply at the college level:
1 Instincts
2 Burst
3 Elusiveness
4 Pass Catching
5 Get Yards (aka Success Rate)
You know what isn’t listed and is near the bottom of importance? Power. Nothing in the history of football is more overrated than power. Whether that’s believing your average lineman should block 2 defenders or a running back should run over a pair of defenders the idea of power in football is exaggerated. Fun to talk about or witness once every blue moon? Absolutely, but minimized greatly on the average running back carry.
Last year, the Irish offensive line cratered an unbelievable 101 spots to 106th in Football Outsiders’ Line Yards, their most important measure of offensive line play. Needless to say, this type of raw measurement seems flawed–no matter your views on last year’s line there’s no way anyone would say Notre Dame’s line was one of the worst blocking units in the country. My biggest problem with a stat like that is that it factors nothing about what ball carriers are doing.
Let’s go back to the running back traits and take Dexter Williams’ 2018 season, for example. His burst is tremendous, maybe the best I’ve seen from a Notre Dame running back in 20 years or more. Although his 40 time was nothing special (4.57 seconds) Williams finished 2nd in the 20-yard shuttle and 3rd in the 3-cone drill at last year’s NFL Combine. His initial acceleration is fantastic.
Yet, his success rate (52.5%, 15th best during the Kelly era for backs with at least 50 carries in a season) didn’t match his gaudy rushing average (6.30) and the running game never felt productive enough last year outside of the rare long run by Williams. A big reason is that Dexter had poor instincts and even worse elusiveness.
If you watch Dexter’s best runs he’s almost always taking defenders by surprise with his acceleration and doing little else to avoid being tackled. He almost never made a defender miss and if he broke tackles it was largely because his acceleration forced poor angles from a tackler as Dexter was able to run away from outstretched arms. I know some might think this is impossible but you’d be hard-pressed to find a carry from Williams where he showed elusiveness, especially at the line of scrimmage where the difference of 2 or 3 yards is massive.
Poor elusiveness leads to running toward the sideline and no gain.
Let’s think about another Notre Dame running back, for example George Atkinson III. Over his career he averaged a healthy 6.2 yards across 153 carries and had outstanding speed, running a 4.48 at the Combine while weighing 218 pounds. However, he’s only managed 7 carries into his 6th season of professional football and never grew into a starting-caliber college back because he had really poor elusiveness. Like Dexter, his cutting was either non-existent or if utilized it took too much time to power down, change direction with far too much lateral movement, while leaving themselves exposed to being tackled easily.
While usually the offensive line gets a lot of criticism we are seeing plenty of that for Notre Dame’s running backs this year. Largely due to a bunch of recruiting misses and suspensions there’s a realization that this group isn’t overly talented. Still, when people talk about running backs it’s usually really vague or just centering around a lack of speed or toughness.
I’d like to focus on instincts and elusiveness because they are so important but hard to judge unless you’re tracking every carry by a runner. According to Pro Football Focus their definition of Elusive Rating is as follows:
This statistic [Elusive Rating] helps “distill the impact of a runner independently of the blocking in front of him by looking at how hard he was to tackle.” Elusive rating’s formula uses yards after contact per attempt and missed tackles forced per touch, rather than raw yardage totals, as its main variables.
Notre Dame has an elusive rating problem stretching back to last year.
Let’s take short-yardage situations, for example. We can distill the ability to be successful in these areas to three main areas: blocking, constraints or varied play-calling, and ball-carrier elusiveness.
Maybe 95% of the time fans only focus on the first two areas. We want 6 blockers to defeat 7 tacklers in the box because of a host of cliched terms handed down to us by our ancestors. We want the coaching staff to surprise the defense with a run they’re not expecting. These are all legitimate criticisms, sometimes you should win battles (especially against inferior opponents) when -1 in blockers and sometimes you should vary the play-calling so you’re not so easy to defend.
Notre Dame’s problem is that its running backs are not elusive enough and they cannot overcome simple play-calling and loaded boxes of defenders. Even the best offensive lines are going to look bad at times when the only success they can find is giving running backs perfect holes to run through on their primary read.
The 4 most important type of cuts.
I find this particularly infuriating. Having a skill set of cuts that are combined with vision and instincts are so important in today’s game. Running backs need to process information quickly and adapt on the fly. This doesn’t mean trying to kick every run to the outside (a hallmark of fast, inexperienced runners who aren’t very good at cutting) but rather determining which alleys at the line of scrimmage have opened up and can be exploited.
Notre Dame’s running backs need to do more on their own. If you watch other top programs their runners are making plays in space, dispatching free defenders, and being explosive even if sometimes the blocking isn’t perfect. With the Irish, I see a lot of plays that aren’t amounting to much but if the running back just makes one guy miss, or cut/skip/jump/bounce to an open secondary read, there’s room for a lot of production. Running forward and lowering your head only isn’t going to cut it.
Elusive Rating Through 2 Games
Kyren Williams 88.0
Jahmir Smith 69.1
Tony Jones 27.8
For reference the top 5 NFL backs in elusive rating last year were Nick Chubb (103.3), Duke Johnson (94.8), Derrick Henry (89.7), Kareem Hunt (85.7), and Marshawn Lynch (85.6).
I’m going to be tracking elusiveness throughout 2019 and publish results later in the season and then maybe once the season is complete for a final overview.
Obviously, we’re looking at very small sample sizes so far in 2019. Jafar Armstrong only has 3 touches following his abdominal injury and isn’t included.
C’Bo Flemister isn’t included either as he hasn’t forced a missed tackle yet (can’t have a zero in the equation) on his 10 touches. It’s been a tough situation this year for the redshirt freshman. He wasn’t expected to carry the ball this early in the season. Additionally, most of his snaps have come in short-yardage and he hasn’t developed the vision to be effective yet. Flemister is basically taking the hand off, looking at his primary read, and lowering his head hoping for the best. That’s the recipe for 3 yards on 10 carries.
Tony Jones has 44.8% of all running back touches this season and 161 touches to date in his career. Unfortunately, he’s the type of back that could drive the Irish running game into the ground if he has to be the primary option for long stretches of the season. He has just good enough footwork to be competent at his size but his elusiveness is generally below average and he doesn’t have the speed or acceleration to take advantage of plays when he does make someone miss.
I’ll be interested to see how Armstrong stacks up when he returns (51.3% success rate last year on 72 carries, a nice blend of speed and power but hasn’t shown a ton of elusiveness to date) but the two most important players moving forward are going to be Jahmir Smith and Kyren Williams.
Kyren Williams with a beautiful crossover cut against New Mexico.
Both have exhibited in their short careers, both in games and practices, that they excel in small spaces and have superior cutting ability to their teammates. Smith in particular has been impressive with 4 forced missed tackles already this season while Williams’ 22 yards after contact is second-best to Jones on 17 fewer touches. I was particularly excited for Williams after seeing a run (HERE at 35:20) in the spring game where he forced 4 missed tackles and sent Shayne Simon into the netherworld.
While it’s true that these 2019 running backs aren’t super talented and likely won’t scare most of the top opponents on the Irish schedule there are ways to get better. None more important than improving their elusiveness. Mixing in some more variety in the run game and making tacklers miss has to be a massive priority ahead of a momentous visit to Georgia on Saturday night.
Great read Eric!
Thanks!
I’m looking forward to the future articles on this topic. I’m certainly guilty of blaming the offensive line this year. So many short yardage situations where it feels they are being pushed back off the ball vs inferior talent.
Thanks for a great article that breaks down the issue from a new angle.
Here is the breakdown from New Mexico in short-yardage runs:
Play 1 (3rd & 2) – Motion Wright, option off defensive end. Line washes UNM back, but Book gives and optioned defensive end grabs Jones’ ankles for one-yard gain. Bad read by Book, no ER for Jones.
Play 2 (4th &1) – Power set under center. Line does a pretty good job. Really poor sneak attempt by Book barely gets the first.
Play 3 (1st & Goal) – Missed block by Wright. Late blitzer attacks. Flemister lowers head for little gain.
Play 4 (2nd & Goal) – UNM defender finds crease between Wright and Tremble. Flemister sort of runs this defender into the ground but for minimal gain.
Play 5 (3rd & Goal) – Pretty standard sneak attempt. Line gets okay push, Book just misses scoring.
Play 6 (4th & Goal) – Patterson gets no push from center. Wright pushes Book into the end zone.
Play 7 (3rd & 1) – Motion Tremble, option off DE again. Hainsey and Patterson move to second level, Kraemer creates an okay seal block. Jones anticipates contact from the optioned DE and runs into Kraemer’s block.
Play 8 (4th & 1) – Same play as above. UNM elects not to have an end in the C-Gap off Hainsey’s right side. Tremble motions. This time, Tremble stays in to block a late arriving linebacker in that gap. UNM looks to overload the B-gap where the run will go. Kraemer mauls his man, Hainsey’s crease block & Tremble’s late block are just enough. Jones runs through a bit of contact at the line (looks mostly from Hainsey in friendly fire), keeps his balance and makes a defender miss for an extra 4 yards.
The rest of the short-yardage stuff from the late third quarter was with the backup linemen.
We’re obviously being ridiculously simplistic in our short-yardage packages. Pretty much every snap through 2 games has 3 WR, the tight end motioning behind the line, and we’re always giving to the running back. Should we be (engage ancestral cliche) blowing New Mexico off the ball regardless? Maybe…but we’re making it difficult on our players when defenders can play downhill without recourse.
We will 100% look different and change things up against Georgia, I have no doubt about that. Book is going to keep one, I bet we’ll see a little pop pass to the tight end who is motioning, and I’m sure Chip Long has a couple more wrinkles.
I don’t see much from the line so far that bothers me–in fact they seem like one of the more stable and consistent groups to me. I don’t like setting them up for failure with vanilla play-calls and if we do against Georgia it’ll be a huge head scratcher to me. We can have a nice mix of power running and reading defenders if we call the game that way and play to our strengths a lot more.
This is why you make the big bucks while I throw my beer at the tv.
Thanks for breaking this down even further. Awesome write up and response.
Watching this team I just don’t think the running game is that big of a concern. Sure I would like to see more explosive plays from the backs and you would like to see the line start to move defenders and not get knocked backwards in short yardage situations. All of that is certainly concerning but you can scheme around those issues. This teams biggest issue is without a doubt stopping the run especially with who we play next. If we lose to Georgia and sadly I see us losing it won’t be because we couldn’t run the ball against them. It will be because we couldn’t stop them from running against us.
If ND can run the ball Georgia won’t have it. Running it well certainly gives advantages to the pass game too. If it’s an advantage for Georgia to be able to run the ball, how is it not a disadvantage that ND can’t. How do you scheme around not great blocking and poor running skills against a top defense? Please don’t answer “jet sweeps”.
In all likelihood, both reasons will be close to equal blame against Georgia 🙂
Really good stuff Eric. If you’ve been around long enough you certainly have seen many ND backs that were able to get 4-5yds when the play was blocked for 2yds. (Anthony Johnson, Mark Edwards come to mind) Though I haven’t seen the push I’d expect from this Oline yet, I would certainly agree that the RBs as a group haven’t shown much either. We have a stud coming in next year and hopefully that type of recruiting continues.
Next year could be a lot more fun for Elusive Rating.
I’m assuming you are referring to Chris Tyree. Seems like we have a logjam at RB potentially for next year if Tony Jones comes back for a 5th year and Avery Davis stays at RB. Clearly Tyree is going to be earning carries. What are the thoughts about Jones and his 5th year?
Seems to me that he is probably not going to be asked back, which is a change from where we have been the past few years. Can you imagine 5 years ago a 1/2 time starter not getting asked back for a 5th year? So, in many ways I guess it shows the depth of the program along with the lack of recruiting success the past few years.
Well, I haven’t looked at the scholarship chart in a while but after consulting it…
Jones feels like a guy who will be asked back but it’s probably 60/40 in favor of him staying or taking a grad transfer elsewhere. No matter what happens this year you’d think his carries will be cut down significantly next year.
Avery Davis might be a 3-year graduate and transfer? Not sure about his timeline with credits or anything but it’s in the back of my mind. Or, he’ll move to another position again.
It would seem mad if ND carried 7 scholarship running backs next year. I would bet that is going to end up at 5 guys more than it would ever be 7 total.
TJJ could be a really good 3rd down back. Not Theo Riddick good, but still good. If he’s used basically only in passing down situations, I think he could be really really valuable for next year’s team. Tyree, as a true freshman, probably isn’t who you’re going to want out there on 3rd down. Maybe Williams will have come along really well and ends up taking on that role though.
Definitely don’t see Davis sticking around.
Hmm… Let’s see…
TJJ – 5th year
Armstrong – senior
Davis – senior
Smith – junior
Flemister – junior
Williams – sophomore
Tyree – freshman
It seems kind of crazy to not bring back a guy who will have contributed as much as Jones will have at that point, but like E says it also seems kind of crazy to carry seven RBs. It’s not even like we could play around with some of them in the slot or something, because we have a lot of bodies at WR too.
Tyree probably isn’t going to be ready for 20 touches a game next year, so I don’t see him stepping in and just taking over. Possible, since traditionally RB is the easiest position for frosh to fill, but I don’t think so. My guess would be that two out of the group will move on.
Completely agree. After watching a few clips of Tyree I don’t think he is the #1 back next year, but if we don’t find a way to get him 5 or 6 touches a game then we are crazy. He has big play ability and we need to be able to get him on the field for a small number of snaps each game.
Seems to me that Armstrong, Smith, and Williams will be the top 3 but Tyree will be earning a few carries also and would give us the option to have 2 backs in the game at the same time because of his pass catching ability.
Not to be too cynical, but that seems like that leads to a situation where you suggest to Avery Davis to graduate by the end of the summer and suggest to C’Bo that he might be able to get more touches elsewhere. Viola, you’ve solved your problem and can take 2 RBs in the 2021 class.
GAIII was good though.
Go on…
This piece excellent. Thanks for doing it.
“We want 6 blockers to defeat 7 tacklers in the box because of a host of cliched terms handed down to us by our ancestors.”
I chortled.
I don’t understand why ND doesn’t just clone Q Nelson and line up 5 of those clones along the o-line? This seems like the obvious solution
I heard ND’s working on it. I’m looking forward to the offensive line in 2037.
Great post. Does the explosiveness and speed out of Davis vs. NM give anyone else hope that he can provide some further elusiveness to the run game?
Love the play, just not necessarily with Davis (or Finke for that matter).
I’d like to see Keys and Lenzy in that role and when he comes back Armstrong I’m sure will get that ball a lot. It’s nice in that it takes the play outside and helps with the inside getting congested. It still takes a really good athlete to turn themselves up-field and make a defender miss one second later. Many struggle making that read when they are hauling towards the sideline when they receive the ball.
Yep, that play almost always require making at least one man miss. Not sure how solid Kyren Williams’ top end speed is, but I think he could shake that first guy pretty frequently on this play. Or just let Lenzy outrun them.
I’m all in on the Kyren Williams hype train. Thought we were really lucky to get him considering the other talent we have at RB, and think he could put up some decent games if he actually gets the ball.
In 1-2 years, I think we will have a backfield that most teams will be jealous of with him and Tyree.
I’m a little disappointed that Williams doesn’t look as much like a bowling ball like he did during the Spring Game, because I was very pleased with coming up with the Scat Back and the Fat Back for Tyree and him, and that might not apply any more 🙁
He may not be bowling ball exactly, but I think he can be a really good inside runner. Of course he will need more than 5 carries for us to really know anything.
Or we can force feed him (food not touches), because Scat Back and Fat Back is very worth it.