Re: CJ Fuller? 2nd string at best, or just too deep at RB now?***

We've had a fleet of nice-looking WR's for awhile now, but it's interesting to see how the RB position has finally emerged at Clemson as well.

We've got quite a group of guys who pass the eye test now. That definitely was not the case the last two years...and honestly, Morris never really had the style of back he preferred for his offense. What his offense is called, conceptually, is the "smashmouth spread"...it's really a pretty simple concept; you spread the ball around to field-stretchers on the perimeter, and when you chase the defense out of the box, you beat them to death with the inside zone. You need big, physical, one-cut backs who can also catch the ball out of the backfield to run this offense the way it was conceived.

Last year Gallman was the best - or at least the healthiest - of the bunch, and he was running at about 190 pounds. He was also a converted Wing T running back in high school and you could definitely see his Wing T instincts, particularly in the way he kept bouncing it east-west and trying to run laterally along the line - and often getting cut down for no gain, because his blocking was just not set up that way - but when he started reading his blocks and cutting north-south behind his pads he was much, much more effective down the stretch. Some RB's are like James Davis or Spiller, who come in game-ready from Minute 1; with Gallman I got the sense he was very much a project we haven't seen the ceiling of yet. Gallman looks like he's about 210+ now...and that's huge for us. It's likewise huge we have a healthy Tyshon Dye - who is your classic one-cut big back, and a guy who would not look out of place at Alabama, as well as a healthy Zac Brooks. Brooks, to me, is another guy who always flashed talent; I liked his speed and I loved his catching ability, I did not like his leg drive through the hole and like Gallman I thought he needed to bulk up. It looks like he has.

It's a nice-looking stable of backs, and there's plenty of talent there. No game-breakers (Feaster will change that instantly), but definitely the sort of guys you can line up and beat people down with, and they're guys who fit the system exceptionally well. Could be the most-effective group of backs in quite awhile, IMHO.

quozzel

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Re: I'm kinda thinking along the same lines...I'm pretty sure

Mar 21, 2015, 3:36 PM

> he'll avoid a RS, but I don't think he'll start
> unless he's over our other guys in terms of knowing
> plays and knowing how to block. If you take a lot of
> our RBs and put them back in high school, they may
> have earned their 5 star by now. Gallman has put on
> some substantial weight, and Dye looks incredibly
> fast in the chute drill. You can't really think of
> the backs we have now as those same ol' 4 stars.
> These guys have had years in the system to learn and
> d bulk up. I highly doubt they take an immediate
> back seat to an incoming freshman. Maybe later in
> the year he may start, but even then...not all five
> stars are battle ready. They exude talent, but still
> need some slight polishing. Look no further than the
> 5 star Bellamy....

One thing a lot of folks don't make enough of is what the rating system is supposed to mean. A 4-star player is supposed to have NFL potential...unless services water it down, there are supposed to be right about as many 4-stars as there are NFL draft picks.

A 5-star - and there are about 30 every year - is supposed to be a first-round draft pick.

Thus far, according to that scale, none of our 4-stars have played like 4-stars. Yet. Dye and Choice were mid-tier 4-stars, Brooks was a low-end 4. Mostly owing to injury, none of them have performed to their alleged potential...again, yet.

Gallman's looked the best...and he wasn't a 4. He was a 3-star coming out of high school. He didn't have the kind of performance last year that would get him drafted but if he builds on what he did show - which was plenty of speed and insane determination - and continues to put on weight...yeah, he could have a 4-star, future-draft-pick type of career.

None of them are game-breakers, though, in that 5-star category. Feaster is, though. Why on Earth some services all calling him a high-end 4-star I have no idea. I've seen plenty of 5-star backs before; he is one. Feaster is better than Marcus Lattimore was, and Lattimore was legit.

It's hard to judge Dye and Choice because neither has been fully healthy for anything like a full season, though both ran well enough last year when they were healthy and actually got a heavy workload that it made you think those 4-star rankings they were carrying were probably appropriate. Thus far Brooks really hasn't convinced, though. Thus far he's has looked like what he was - sort of a tweener, a WR trying to convert to RB, and he's caught the ball well out of the backfield - he made a beautiful long TD catch against UGA in the opener in 2013 - but his leg drive and acceleration through the hole has not looked all that impressive. He hit the hole...and just sorta...stuck. We'll see if he's built up his lower body because that was really his problem, IMHO.

Just saying, we've got a really nice-looking stable with our current crew healthy, probably one of the top 10-15 RB stables in the country, certainly in the Top 20. That definitely wasn't the case once Davis/Spiller/Ellington finally moved along. With Feaster...it starts looking like what Alabama or Oregon have, IMHO, or what we had when those three were in Tigertown.

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