OTish: Thomas Rawls: 27 carries, 161 yards, 1 TD

Submitted by westwardwolverine on

Heh. 

Never stops being funny. 

Edit: Sounds like its a Seahawks record. 

Michigan4Life

January 8th, 2017 at 12:27 AM ^

didn't play in the NFL again after the incident.  NFL didn't re-sign him because he was on a decline.

Tyreek Hill was a 1st round talent that got kicked off the school for DV. 

Difference between Tyreek Hill and Thomas Rawls is Tyreek was seen as a 1st round talent and Rawls was seen as a late round pick. Much easier to classify late round prospects as a UDFA if he has character issues.

TIMMMAAY

January 7th, 2017 at 11:45 PM ^

I'm not one to pine for the backup, at all. However, his junior year here, I really felt like we should have been giving him a lot more carries. He did fairly well when he got the ball, and always ran hard. I always felt like he just needed to find his rhythm, but never got enough touches to get there. 

WolverineHistorian

January 7th, 2017 at 11:49 PM ^

Those pitiful offensive lines under Hoke would not have opened any holes for Rawls. Let's not pretend the endless number of 1 yard gains would have been any different.

Probably the worst lines in school history. Not only did they not open any holes, they gave our QB no protection. When you have a QB as mobile as Gardner getting sacked 60 something times, something is horribly wrong.

God this is depressing. What happy memory should we revisit next? RichRod's defenses?




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Magnus

January 8th, 2017 at 12:40 PM ^

Unfortunately, Detroit's defense played like crap last night. Cris Collinsworth even said last night during the broadcast that the Lions' defense does not have many stars. The lack of talent on that side of the ball is apparent.

OwenGoBlue

January 8th, 2017 at 12:23 AM ^

The Seahawks line is the NFL equivalent. They've been cheap with it (something like a $6.2 mil TOTAL salary or 4% of their cap spend) and it includes a guy who didn't play football in between the eighth grade and the NFL at left tackle.

It's been a huge problem for them all year and if Wilson wasn't so mobile their passing game would be an abject disaster.

Rawls may be a later bloomer but a good chunk of his lack of production at Michjgan has to be chalked up to shitty coaching and poor play design. :(

Magnus

January 8th, 2017 at 12:48 PM ^

I think you're wrong. Ryan Van Bergen and Mike Martin were great. Frank Clark was very good. Jibreel Black was a quality player. He made decent players out of some mediocre guys, and he was the guy who initially recruited/developed Ryan Glasgow.

Michigan was #9 in Adjusted Line Yards, #12 in Opportunity Rate, #14 in Stuff Rate, and #5 in Pass Downs Sack Rate in 2014, which was the earliest that Football Outsiders started tracking that stuff. Some of their other categories were mediocre, but sucked? That's a gross mischaracterization. 

LSAClassOf2000

January 7th, 2017 at 11:20 PM ^

I was such a huge fan of Teryl Austin's plan to wear down Rawls by allowing him to get 5.96 yards per carry, let me tell you. *sips more wine*

In all seriousness though, he did have a great game, and again, another game which makes me wonder what Hoke's staff didn't see that was in fact perhaps there (an offensive line would have helped too, of course). 

jabberwock

January 8th, 2017 at 12:09 AM ^

started with recruiting RB & O-line in the late Carr era and contined through RR, Hoke, & now Harbaugh owns some of it too.

I've heard it repeated so much on this blog that it's gospel that "RB is the one position that doesn't need a ton of development other than pass blocking & some receiving.  It's supossedly the one position a freshman can come in & make a difference at."

Fitz (2011,1041 yrds) is the only 1000 yrd rusher since Mike Hart.

So that is Carr's "other" roster RBs, his O-line and then the combined tenues of RR & Hoke.

I don't expect his O-line to be ready yet, but even Harbaugh's had 2 seasons to get a productive back.

Do we have to resort to sticking pins in a Mike Hart voodoo doll?

 

jabberwock

January 8th, 2017 at 10:58 AM ^

but would you claim that Michigan had a dominating rushing offense this year?

it seemed peicemeal, unbalanced, and tended to disappear in games we needed it most.

My point wasn't so much to talk about feature backs vs. commitee  but to illustrate the frustration that "Michigan can't recruit a 1000yrd rusher" is more based on coaching/development and O-line rather than 1k RBs being as rare as unicorns.