The Year Of The Running Back

The USC Trojans were seated on the turf in orderly rows, stretching their hamstrings. It was the first official practice of the new season, but Ken Norton was talking the same old smack. "I guar-an-tee," Norton, the lantern-jawed linebackers coach was shouting, "the running backs will not get a yard today. Not . . . get . . . a . . . yard!" While it had the desired effect, generating a storm of woofing between offense and defense, Norton's declaration didn't hold up for long. ¶ In an ensuing 11-on-11 drill sophomore tailback Allen Bradford found a crease off left tackle, but his path was quickly impeded by a freshman defensive end. This was not just any freshman defensive end. This was Everson Griffen, a.k.a. Super Freak, a.k.a. Big E, a.k.a. E Train, the nation's top-rated schoolboy at his position last season, the one defensive coordinator Nick Holt was referring to last February when he said, "The guy is a frickin' beast!" ¶ But so, it turns out, is Bradford, who derailed the E Train--knocked him on his butt--with a stiff-arm to the left ear hole that served the dual purpose of welcoming the freshman to the Pac-10 and temporarily silencing Norton. ¶ The cold truth for Bradford is that he'll need to keep making special plays like that to earn even a modest number of touches this season. No other team has more depth at any one position than USC has at tailback, where Bradford will compete with nine other former high school phenoms for the right to be the feature back on the nation's top team.

As Southern California goes in 2007, so goes the nation. Following an era in college football that could fairly be described as the Quarterback Cult--passers have won six of the last seven Heisman Trophies--the most dominant players heading into this season are running backs. Seven of the top 10 rushers from a year ago return, and there hasn't been such a constellation of star ball carriers since the late 1970s, when the careers of Marcus Allen, Earl Campbell, Tony Dorsett, George Rogers, Billy Sims and Charles White overlapped.

But just because we're entering the year of the running back doesn't mean some of these guys won't be throwing the ball (See: McFadden, Darren, page 70). One of the fan-friendly developments in the college game is a move away from Neanderthal, power football to more imaginative schemes. Whether it's McFadden taking snaps in Arkansas's Wildcat formation or Florida wideout Percy Harvin lining up in the backfield and scoring on counter plays, we are entering a period in which creative, contrarian coaches are more willing than ever to use the running game in nontraditional ways.

One wrinkle we won't be witnessing anytime soon is a halfback pass from Boise State's Ian Johnson. While that play is still in the Broncos' arsenal, there's a reason that Vinny Perretta was the back who threw for the touchdown against Oklahoma in overtime of the Fiesta Bowl: Johnson has accuracy issues, which were apparent following his game-winning two-point conversion on a Statue of Liberty play. In celebration he flung the ball into the University of Phoenix Stadium stands in the direction of his father, and, Johnson says, "I overthrew him by 20 rows."

He also allowed as how he'd drawn motivation from a pre-Fiesta Bowl response to a reporter's question by Sooners tailback Adrian Peterson, who said he didn't know who Johnson was. Well, Johnson was the second-leading rusher in the nation in yards per game (behind Garrett Wolfe of Northern Illinois) and gained 1,713 yards on 276 carries for a hefty 6.21 yards per touch. He also scored a Division I-A-high 25 touchdowns, including five in a 42-14 victory over Oregon State, the team that had slow-played him during his high school recruitment. (Be patient, the Beavers told him, and we might have a scholarship for you at the end of the recruiting season.)

Not blessed with blinding speed, Johnson has had to become patient and cagey with the ball. He is masterly at setting up his blocks. Those traits were on display after Jared Zabransky took the snap and faked a throw to the right on that Statue of Liberty play. Check out the replay: Johnson essentially loiters behind the quarterback, hands on his hips--"futzing around," he says--projecting boredom and mild resentment. Suddenly, Johnson pivots left, takes the ball from Zabransky's outstretched arm and motors toward the end zone.

Adrian Peterson knows who Johnson is now.

A week later, in the same stadium, Florida won the national championship by discombobulating favored Ohio State with an array of options, counters, motions, two-quarterback sets, fakes and reverses. Florida had to resort to such exotica because the team lacked a top-shelf back. "We would rather not have to be [so] creative to run the football," says coach Urban Meyer. On the other hand, he says, to start at tailback at Florida, "you have to have great ability or we're not going to hand you the ball."

It is one of Meyer's tenets that his best players will get the rock, regardless of position. That's why Harvin lined up all over the field as a freshman last season. His 105 rushing yards in the SEC title game included a 67-yard touchdown run featuring a cut to the inside so blinding and sudden that half the Arkansas defense, it seemed, was caught in quicksand. On a counter play in the Gators' previous game, Harvin streaked 41 yards for a score against Florida State. "Some people call that creative," Meyer said afterward. "I call it a counter play to a very fast player."

It was in 2001 that Meyer, then the new coach at Bowling Green, decided to install a spread offense, so he called West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez to pick his brain. "All wishbone offenses look alike," says Rodriguez, but spread offenses are all "a little different. Everybody has their own deal, and fast players make it look better."