Incomplete Thoughts From an Incomplete Game

Good to have you back, TWolf. (Melanie Maxwell I AnnArbor.com)

Had I known the game itself wasn't going to make it to the fourth quarter I might have had a little more of a sense of urgency in the hours before the game.

Instead of tuning in for the beginning of the game I spent most of the first quarter driving to a friends house where I was going to spend the next eight plus hours stuffing my face with junk food followed by cheap domestic beer.  I was running late because this was the first Saturday in months that I decided to actually accomplish something in the morning instead of laying around like a worthless pile of skin, and I was relocating because I was being exiled from my house due to a huge half-marathon that was shutting down all the roads in my neighborhood the next day, thus interfering with my commute to work Sunday morning.

I missed Western Michigan's entire first drive (probably for the best) and walked in just in time to see the Wolverines attempt a fourth and short to keep the long drive alive in the end of the first quarter.  From there the game was all over the place with weather delays, technical difficulties, and eventually, an early and somewhat anticlimactic end.  After re-watching the game this morning     courtesy of the indescribably awesome Boys n da Pahokee on the mgoboard     this is what I saw:

Half Full or Half Empty? Running Backs

There is a hurricane rolling in to Virginia Beach tonight, so posts will be coming hard and fast today and most likely not at all tomorrow.  Let's move on to the biggest unknown question in the running game.


The old adage goes, "if you have two quarterbacks, you have none."  What about two running backs?  What about three?  Four?

The running back position in the spread and shred offense seems to be overlooked sometimes.  When people look back on Rodriguez's tenure at West Virginia the first name that gets mentioned is always Pat White.  But the quarterback position will only account for somewhere around 40% of the rushing attempts in a given year.  The Pat Whites of the world may run the show, but it is the guys like Steve Slaton and Noel Divine that carry the bulk of the workload.

From fumble prone to MINOR RAGE!  Can this year's
running back corp take the next step?

The past two years, the running back position in Ann Arbor has been in a state of constant flux.  Sam McGuffie was thrust into playing time early in his true freshman year of '08 (probably costing him his health and driving him back to Texas), but neither he nor Michael Shaw found much success on the ground, paving the way for Brandon Minor to take a bigger role in the offense.  After a solid end to the '08 campaign, Minor and speedster Carlos Brown looked to be the one two punch that UM's breakout offense would need in '09.  However, injuries took a toll and turned the running back position into a game of musical chairs.

Going in to this season the oft injured Minor and the sporadic play maker Brown have both graduated and taken with them the last remnants of Lloyd Carr's stable of running backs.  Stepping in to fill the void are a number of running backs who have different levels of experience.  Shaw, a junior, and Vincent Smith, a freshman, are both back in the fold having a few starts a piece, but both have been inconsistent.  Joining them are three largely unknown newcomers.  Michael Cox the alleged super athlete saw garbage time last year.  Fitzgerald Toussaint is the owner of not only a fantastic name but an equally impressive load of hype generated by highlight tapes and scout team buzz from last year.  Last but not least is Stephen Hopkins, the early-enrolling freshman who has established himself as the battering ram of the bunch.

Can we get reasonable production out of a group of unproven running backs?