All this clamoring for Shepard to get so many touches per game is a little silly. I mean, this is the same crowd that begged for Holiday to get more touches, now complains that the playcall is predictable when he's in the game. I don't care how good a guy is, you can only bring him in to run the exact same play so many times before it's ineffective or he gets hurt. He can't single-handedly ignite our running game. K-State tried to that against UCLA with Daniel Thomas two weeks ago and it didn't work. Why would it in the SEC. Oh, I know. . .you all want Shepard to throw the unexpected pass in a key situation. But if you'd ever seen the quackers the guy throws, I doubt you'd want that anymore.
Why? He is averaging like 10 yards a carry. Why would people not want to see more from him? At least until teams find a way to stop him. Then change up. Exactly, when Holiday was ripping off 8-10 yards per carry you use him more. Now that that is not working they need to use him less. It's not fans being fickle. It's just fans wanted more of whats working and less of what's not. Tebow, McFadden, and Prior were all able to do it without getting hurt. When/if it becomes ineffective then stop calling it. Of course not. It's just an aspect of our offense that has been effective thus far but imo under utilized. I sure don't want to see him in for 25-30 plays at this point but if he keeps running for 7-15 yards a carry then why not go to him more? This was not meant to call you out Contained Chaos. Your post just had up a bunch of points about Shepperd that I wanted to address so I used it for rebuttal.
But if you keep pounding him, teams will find a way to stop him much more quickly. Otherwise, we risk relying on him too heavily and becoming limited. But, that's a chicken-and-egg argument. The sooner we use his more frequently, the sooner it becomes predictable, and the sooner the fans will start being unhappy with it. Aside from the fact that all 3 of those guys have a serious size advantage on Shepard (dude's barely 188lbs right now), they also had other factors working for them. Tebow is in a system much more conducive to his style. McFadden always had Jones to divert attention. Pryor plays in the Big-10. I don't think that any of them draws a fair comparison to Shepard at this point. It's ok, you're allowed to disagree with me.:yelwink2:
That's when you add option pass to the mix, or fake to KW. Just like Arkansas did. I think predictability is an over rated fan argument. Just because we run RS out of the gun doesn't mean it's the same play every time. There are lots of wrinkles and nuances that can give the defense fits that the average fan never notices. The point is not that it is predictable, it's that it is effective. Again, I'm not advocating him pounding the ball 20+ times a game. Just want to see a little more calls his way.
Honestly, I do agree with this. He needs a few more touches, but he's not ready to carry the load. As for the unexpected play, I think we need to run the true wild cat with him. . .like the Dolphins are doing with Williams and Brown. Let him get back there flanked by Scott and/or Williams and hand it to one of them from time-to-time. Keep the defense guessing and provide a spark for the offense when they're in a rut. I've seen a couple of passes that he threw in practice, and boy, they were uga-ly. Not something I'd want to offer up for any SEC defense.
Is there any hope for his arm? Arm strength is usually something you have coming out of high school. If thats the case we need to toss this notion of him being a QB and work 100% of his reps as a specialty player.
