I know. The Oakland A's and the NY Yankees had fine outfielders--so they limited Mr. October's cuts so that all the fine players would get a chance.

The thought of playing the best guy most of the time is not good policy.


In other news, Stephen Curry lauded the Warriors deep bench and stated that he understands Steve Kerr's new decision that he'll probably only see 8-10 minutes a game from now on. In fact, he wondered how he even saw the court so much in real games over the past few years given the depth of quality of his teammates, some of whom may have been on the team longer than he has.



The failure to see basic truths, the lack of M.O. on this board....




...will doubtless be followed by 'i told you so..coach was right to hold him back until now....' should Irons prove out.

'cause no matter what this staff does, it's proven to be superior, proven worthy of our reverence.


No ?'s aloud.

I guess I didn't see running back play as a problem last year. Not sure how many games people think the running backs cost this team last year. I hope Irons can be a 1,000-yard rusher next year. In the meantime, I'll feel comfortable there are four guys at that position that can get it done.

Irons is now Curry and Reggie rolled into one - WOW!!!

Maybe Monroe's just not a fan of the electric organ.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMgtjYv7zIo

Got a chance to talk Football with one of the Assts and his observation of Irons went like this. "Beast" "Only reason he is here is because he is from Canada" "A slightly slower version of Adrian Peterson" "A Big Ten type RB in the MAC" "We have to get him involved" "AJ is a coaches dream ultimate team player and hardest worker" .....interesting conversation but its pretty much what most of us had assumed.

Wow, my eyes were not deceiving me.

for the umpteenth time, stop making excuses, play the best players. Be done with getting emotionally attached and believing that players should start for the rest of their life because you like them.

Whoa, talk about the pot calling the kettle black.... players should not necessarily start just because you like them. There is ample reason to believe that Irons was not ready to play a bigger role last year. The good news is that are reasons to believe he has benefited a great deal from the last year, and that he will be ready to play a bigger role this year. Had he been simply handed the position on a silver platter, would he have grown as much? Would he have worked as hard, and been a super-iron Bobcat?

30 carries 140 is less than 5 yards per carry, nothing to go gaga over, but if you say so. AJ is a good or great back, unfortunately, he may not be the best back that we have. White is Mr. Explosive, Irons is everything powerful explosive and fast. As far as Big ben, I have not seen him play.

IF YOU START AND END WITH THE CONCLUSIONS THAT THE COACHING AND COACHES' DECISIONS ARE INFALLIBLE, THEN YOU ARE IMMOBILE AND THERE'S NO ROOM FOR DISCUSSION AT ALL.


HOWEVER, IF YOU FIRST JUDGE THE COACHING STAFF'S 11 YEARS OF RECORD, THEN YOU MIGHT NOT START AND END WITH THE CONCLUSION THAT THE COACHING AND COACHES' DECISION ARE INFALLIBLE. AND THERE MAY BE ROOM FOR DISCUSSION.


AND, YES, I AM YELLING.



#theclassicadvicemybrothergavemegrowingup:hey__,don'tbeincredibly__,__

Well, of course, that was AJ against the NIU first team defense, not some garbage time play against the 2d or third team defense in the late minutes of a game. Since this is a thread about Maleek, let's look at how his carries stack up against first team defenses. When we do, we find that it is less than AJ's average, so if AJ's numbers aren't something to go gaga over, neither are Maleek's.

Going back to the play by play, I find that his carries that were not late in the fourth quarter were:
Idaho: none (had 2 carries late, after the game was decided for 21 yards)
Marshall: none
SELA: none
Minn: none
Akron: none
Miami: 11-49 (3,5,2,2,15,5,3,9,4,0,1)
WMU: none (4 late carries for 19 yards)
BG: 2-3 (1,2) (plus 2 late carries for 55 yards)
Buffalo: 4-7 (1,4,1,1)
Kent: none (4 late carries for 22 yards)
Ball St: 5-32 (10,2,14,0,6)

So, in carries against first team defenses, he had 22 carries for 91 yards, an average of 4.1 yards a carry. His best games were Miami and Ball State, two teams that were certainly not as good as NIU.

His distribution of carries in contested games was as follows:
0 Yards - 2 times
1 yard - 5 times
2 yards - 4 times
3 yards - 2 times
4 yards - 2 times
5 yards - 2 times
6 yards - 1 time
9 yards - 1 time
10 yards - 1 time
14 yards - 1 time
15 yards - 1 time

Fully half of all plays went for less than 3 yards. That is a concern because you aren't going to sustain drives when you have runs for less than 3 yards, and those short runs are going to put you into passing situations.

He has a lot of potential, but it is still raw. Against 2d or 3rd string players he was able to romp for some big yardage, including a long TD runs against Idaho and BG. Against first team defenses he needs to get better at using his size to get positive yardage, and get more carries to be 3 yards and up.

The place AJ does better, in my opinion, is that he does an excellent job of churning out drive sustaining runs against first string defenses. Those 4-7 yard carries are what successful drives are built on.

I look for big improvement in Maleek's play this year. I don't think it's fair to leave Dorian Brown out of the conversation, either - he's also an outstanding back with outstanding potential.

Every excuse, he is raw, he may not be able to pass protect or he may not be engaged. He got the Bobcat award and he is a man-child with the rock. Most of you know that if he got the same opportunities, he would put up better numbers, lets cut the act.