| Oregon's RB Recruiting over the years |
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| News - Football |
| Monday, 06 July 2009 04:28 |
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Written by Brandon Oliver
A lot has been made of Oregon’s supposed lack of running back recruiting over the past year, but if you take a closer look the staff seems to be right on schedule. Last year they brought in two highly rated running backs in LaMichael James out of Texas and the top junior college running back in LaGarrette Blount. A lot of people were disappointed when the well known Bryce Brown decided to take his show to Knoxville to play his college ball under Lane Kiffin. Before Brown had even made his decision, Oregon had secured a verbal commitment for the class of 2010. That pledge came from a highly rated running back out of South Florida, Ethan Grant. Many Duck fans out there have longed for the Ducks to reach out and get more kids from the south. They have a highly rated kid at a position of need from the state of Florida and yet some fans still want more. So too, does the staff and it is well known that they are pursuing multiple running backs for the class of 2010. The good thing is that 2010 is a very good year to be hot after multiple running backs. There are many highly rated running backs as well as a lot of “sleepers” in which the staff is hard after. There is a very deep class for high school running backs but there is also some serious talent in the junior college ranks. If you think about the history of Oregon’s running backs and where the staff has been each June in terms of running back commitments, you will realize the is nothing to worry about. In fact, outside of LaMichael James, Jonathon Stewart and Terrell Jackson, it has been few and far between for the Ducks in signing “highly rated” high school running backs. Over the past 15 years or so, the Ducks have almost always been at or near the top of rushing offense in the PAC-10 conference. The main reasons for this run of success has been junior college players or in the case of Onterrio Smith, a transfer from Tennessee. Below are some reasons that the sky just might not fall after all. Saladin McCullough held the single season rushing record at Oregon until Jonathon Stewart broke his mark ten years after Saladin accomplished the feat. After some whirlwind adventures had taken him off the map, the staff found Saladin at El Camino Junior College in Southern California. After Saladin had moved on, the staff found Reuben Droughns at another California junior college. Droughns was a bruising yet agile runner who many fans consider to be one of the best Ducks of all time. Droughns was born in Chicago, attended high school in Anaheim, CA and then moved on to become the nation’s top junior college running back at Merced Junior College. He wasn’t the last of the top notch junior college stars to choose Oregon either. There was a void when Droughns departed and Duck fans wondered who might replace him. That was until the staff found another top junior college running back in, you guessed it, California. This time Maurice Morris was the one who caught the eye of the staff after rushing for a national junior college record of 3,708 in his two years at Fresno City College. Morris arrived at Fresno City from all the way in South Carolina but the Duck staff was able to keep him on the west coast and he thrived in his two years at Oregon. “MoMo” had a running mate his senior season at Oregon by the name of Onterrio Smith. Smith was originally from Sacramento and was a very highly thought of recruit. So much so, that the defending BCS National Champion, Tennessee Volunteers offered him and two of his teammates the chance to play for them in Knoxville. After a roller coaster ride at Tennessee that saw him dismissed from the team, Mike Bellotti and the Oregon staff took a chance on Smith and allowed him to transfer into the Oregon program. After sitting out a year due to the transfer, Smith jumped in and immediately made a huge impact. He shared time with Morris in 2001, but stepped up when the Ducks needed it the most. After a shocking loss to Stanford that could have sent the Ducks spiraling after watching their national title hopes fade, Smith ran for a school record 285 yards against a very good Washington State team to get the Ducks back on track. Smith then left Oregon after his junior year and went to the NFL, leaving Oregon in somewhat of a bind. That is when the staff got creative and turned to a kid who was a highly rated defensive player, coming off a year in which he sat out the football season. Terrance Whitehead became a very solid piece of the Ducks success over the next few seasons, while sharing time with others such as another SEC transfer, Chris Vincent from LSU. What is the point of all of this you might ask? Well, if you follow the steps back in time you will see that Oregon has never been a team to have a stable of highly rated running backs just waiting in the wings. The past three years they had the fortune of having a couple outstanding running backs who they secured straight out of high school in Jeremiah Johnson and Jonathon Stewart. Let’s not forget the starting running back this year for the Ducks, LaGarrette Blount. Blount is yet another top ranked JC running back that the staff was on when he wasn’t a household name to Duck fans. After being one of the top players in the state of Florida out of high school, Blount wound up at East Mississippi Junior College before the coaching staff secured his signature to come west. Starting to see a pattern here? Anytime the Ducks have been faced with a need at the running back position they have known right where to turn and have rarely been wrong in their assessment of these junior college players. A lot of people out there would like to see the Ducks have this kind of sustained success with high school running backs but why fix what isn’t broken? For the class of 2010, the staff already has a commitment from a very fast and versatile kid from South Florida who is highly rated at the running back position and they are in play for a quite a few other big time backs. Some you have heard of, others you have not. Even though Chip Kelly is still fairly new to the program, Gary Campbell and many other coaches are still around and well aware of how the foundations of this program were built. It is only June and I think we can all agree that unless you were in the inner circles, you probably didn’t know much about any of the aforementioned stars at this point in the year before they wound up at Oregon. The staff did and they went after them hard and they reaped the benefits of it each time. To be fair, it is hard to know what goes on inside the heads of coaches and potential student athletes, but for whatever reason, Oregon has been blessed to pick up the cream of the crop from the junior college ranks and those moves are what have led Oregon to be known as one of the premier programs in the country in terms of rushing the football. Thanks in large part to the success the staff has also achieved in recruiting offensive lineman from both the high school ranks and, yes, junior colleges. With all this and the JC numbers from last year’s recruiting class it is pretty apparent that the Oregon Duck football program, as usual, has taken its own path to the upper echelon of the college football world. In this case, I guess you can make the claim that it is both the journey and the destination. It’s not always how you get there, but the fact that you do. Comments (5)
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written by travelingd, July 06, 2009
I love the article. Saladin McCullough is one of my all time favorites, I don't think he ever gets enough mention when people talk about the RB's we've produced. I think I am in the minority, because I am excited about this years RB's. I look for Alston to have a break out year, with Crenshaw being his steady reliable self, Blount pounding away, and James being worked into the mix.
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| Last Updated on Monday, 06 July 2009 09:56 |
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Go Ducks.