Ole Miss rushed for more yards against Alabama and LSU than us with Jeff Scott and Randall Mackey, both of whom were smaller than Perkins.
So like I am saying....Perkins would be a great back in a spread option attack with a mobile QB, but he is not an every down back when you have an immobile QB.
Ole Miss has a mobile QB, so you are proving my point. Not sure about skb's point, but mine is that Perkins is not an every down back in OUR system. He would be next year though with Dak in there.
And you're wrong if you think Adrian Peterson wouldn't make a difference, that's silly. Perkins can be tackled by one arm of a D Lineman, Peterson takes 2-3 pro lineman to take down, and sometimes more than that. That is exactly what I'm talking about too. Against SEC teams we need a guy running between the tackles that can break some tackles, move a pile, and force defenses to put extra guys in the box. Perkins is not that guy. Does it make him a bad player, no. In fact I think he could be even better if Mullen would keep him doing what he does best, which is not running up the middle on a read option, with a statue QB that no defense EVER thinks is going to keep it himself. So Perkins small frame is a sitting duck back there in the spread option game, and he's done great considering.
I still think Perkins has a great year because he will get the bulk of the carries, but I wish we would use one of the bigger guys as a feature back and get Perkins back into that 3rd down, screen game, role that he played so well during Ballard's senior season.