And that's the problem I see. Homer earned his spot? How? By last seasons showing? He coughed it up on his first carry against SSU and then didn't really do anything the rest of the game. We are starting to build the kind of competition at that position again where if you cough the ball up like he did then you lose reps.
The reason he got 6 runs is because we were down double digits before you blinked. You said you were at the game, guess you were watching that with your eyes closed too.
Playcalling being blamed for a running back not anticipating blocking lanes. Newsflash this isn't Madden where plays run exactly as scripted. You have to anticipate and react, especially at running back.
Are you insane?
Homer earned his spot by rushing for JUST UNDER 1,000 yards in a partial season as the starter (after Walton went down). The 1,000 yard mark is very rare for UM running backs. Homer did that against actual competition, when he was given actual carries (more than 7). He delivered when we had no other truly viable running option, and when people knew he would get the ball.
But suddenly a ripped Deejay Dallas is his superior? Nope, not buying that horsesh!te.
A guy has ONE FUMBLE? What kind of a pu$$y are you? Malik has had far more interceptions, yet he still gets the ball. Homer did nothing against SSU? He was the second leading rusher and had a long run of 35 yards. That's not "didn't really do anything the rest of the game", particularly when we emptied the bench and even gave rushes to ROBERT BURNS.
As for your idiocy on the LSU game, no we were not "down double digits before I blinked". You are clueless. We were down 17-3 after over a third of the game had gone by (over 20 minutes). Prior to that point, Miami had the ball FOUR TIMES and handed off to Homer exactly ONCE. We gave the ball to Trayone Gray as many times at that point.
I hate it when absolute idiots come on this board and speak as if they know anything about football. "Anticipate and react". What a joke. When over half of our runs have been Malik turning to either the left or right and holding out the ball with both hands, you are not going to have much "read and react" from ANY of our running backs, especially when the DL caves in our OL. As just ONE EXAMPLE of the way playcalling makes an absolute difference, you can go back to the Butch years when we used to run a devastating short-side-of-the-field sweep. The play was predicated on the WR/TE/Tackles sealing off all of the pursuit at the edge, and then handing Edgerrin and James Jackson a clean alley to run up the sidelines for 20 or more yards.
If you want to take advantage of ANY running back's ability to "read and react", then you give him a second or two to either hit a hole or allow him to pick a spot for a cutback. That is EXACTLY what happened to us on LSU's long TD run, the RB was going towards the outside before he spotted our gaping hole in the middle, at which point he cut back and went the remaining 50 yards nearly untouched.
The point is not that Deejay doesn't have ability, he does. But Homer ran the ball 163 times last year, gained nearly 1,000 yards, and did so against good competition. 7 carries against LSU and some nearly-worthless comparatives against SSU is not "building competition" or causing him to "lose reps". The playcalling is bad, the OL isn't great, Malik's decision-making is terrible, and Homer hasn't forgotten how to run the ball. None of that means that Deejay Dallas has proven himself superior with 8 runs against LSU and some garbage-time performance against SSU.
Homer deserves to be the starter until Deejay clearly outperforms him against a quality defense that doesn't wear orange, white, and green.
.
