How do you think Shepard will be used in 2010

I heard Crowton plans to move his seat more toward the middle of the bench rather than sit at the end.

 

like bhelm and dolemite i think he would be best utilized as a receiver... until he toughens up a bit. dude is too small to be a RB/QB in the SEC. of course if he hits the weights, anything could happen. if the guy is as good as everyone thinks, he'd have been playing. why would the coaching staff let a player that could make the difference b/w 14-0 or 9-4 sit on the bench?

 

When we do use him on offense, I'd love if we pulled JJ. We are wasting a spot on the field if we're just gonna have JJ pitch it to Shep anyway. Cut out the middle man and just snap it straight to Russell. Wherever he wants to go, fine, just let him do his thing.

Pair him back there with a few playmakers alongside him and let him operate. It's clear Jefferson isn't an option QB, but Shepard ran some zone read in high school to devastating results. We should allow him to handle direct snaps primarily.

 

I like that call about him running the zone read. Put him back there with ridley/ware and run ford/gore in motion and let us run all over someone.

 

Shepard is going to be used primarily as a receiver. I don't know about returning kicks and punts since this is something new for him. There's more to returning kicks and punts that just standing 40 yards downfield and waiting for the ball to land. If he can turn into a decent route-runner this offseason, we'll be blessed. I can see some end-arounds also, but he's going to be a nightmare in the slot.

 

Very unlikely Miles is going to have him running many zone read sets as a sophomore. He has to make quick decisions and properly analyze opposing defenses, and right now it's all we can do to get JJ to do that. It's one thing to run that offense against HS teams, it's quite another to implement it against SEC defenses, especially those like Saban's that are predicated on disguising coverages/blitzes and confusing QBs.

 

Just to put it in perspective. Percy Harvin had 41 rushes for 428 yards and 34 catches for 427 yards and 5 TD's total.

Shepard had 45 rushes for 277 yards and 5 catches for 34 yards. That's about 2 less touches a game that Percy got.

Granted, Percy was put in better position to succeed with this touches with better play calling, but Percy's breakout year was his sophomore where he got over 1600 yards and 10 TDs.

Percy was also a little bigger than Shep. If we don't use him effectively this next year, then there definitely is a problem though

 

Harvin also played on a very good O team. So he wasnt as needed, he could be brought along slowly. LSU was a very poor team on O so Shepard was needed much more. So the touches are very misleading. Shepard should have been used a lot more no matter how you try to slice it.

 

I think there will be a want to get him multiple touches a game.

 

The difference is that almost all of Shepard's yards rushing were out of the option set. Harvin never really had to worry about that/ His carries were on end-arounds and misdirection plays that got him out in space pretty quickly to make plays. Completely different gameplan with obviously different results. I expect similar numbers from Shepard when they begin to use him (almost) exclusively as a WR/RB.