Ahmad Hardy: How does this still happen?
- Thread starter Rick Cleveland
- Start date
To be fair, our defense makes every running back look like the second coming of Walter Payton.
Our only chance to get guys like that are if we offer them early. If we don’t they get a chip on their shoulder.
We need to be evaluating the 2nd rate players in MS. Not just the top flight. Those guys will come here and develop. Get the rest from the portal…….G5 up and comers and blue blood drop backs from MS.
We need to be evaluating the 2nd rate players in MS. Not just the top flight. Those guys will come here and develop. Get the rest from the portal…….G5 up and comers and blue blood drop backs from MS.
Much like the recruitment of Jarquez Hunter from Neshoba Central. On a lot of folks “radar” but no great offers until late in process when we finally offered but Auburn beat us to the punch. Will say he had been an Auburn fan his whole life. But our staff wouldn’t offer him until late. The only reason he got the Auburn offer was before they whiffed on several others first. And of course this was Mooreheads staff evaluations. Another one for n our backyard we completely missed
Reading the article, it sounds like we literally could have offered him on signing day and he would have come to State.
Very fair point but remember Leach was a national name and knew what D1 players looked like. He could be afforded the luxury of crootin who he wanted. Plus he killed the portal.
Now a days everyone runs a spread with one back sets or no back sets. Our State teams as do the majority of others, carries double the amount of recievers to rb’s. Our roster has 7 rb’s and 15 wr’s. Ole miss’s roster has 7 rb’s 15 wr’s. Souther Miss roster has 6 rb’s 16 wr’s. Hardy is an old school type of back, that reminds me of Vic Ballard. Ballard too was overlooked coming out of high school, and wasn’t recruited heavy coming out of Juco. Hardy found a home that features and highlights his style as did Ballard. I personally wish we ran a system that utilized more running backs personnel. Including identifying a true fullback to have on roster.
Hardy said this game was kind of personal. He’s now the D1 leading rusher.
Hardy style is perfect for Drinkwitz’s more than Lebby’s gimmick. Lebby has like two run concepts, maybe 3. Drink learned from Malzahn. They use like 10 different run concepts, plus their running back runs the balls like 80% of their runs, while our running backs run the ball 65% of our running plays.
I’m not sure if you’re serious.
ULM didn’t even offer him until signing day of 2024. Even they were about to pass on him until they missed on somebody else.
You wouldn’t have ever recruited Hardy either. You hate RuNdAbAwLeRs.
A passing offense opens up the run game. Stop before you’re proven a bigger idiot.
I must have missed it. All I heard you say is “we have to offer these guys early or they get a chip on their shoulder and we have no chance”.
The implication there is that the chip on this guy’s shoulder would be so big that he’d choose a signing day offer from ULM over a pre-existing MSU offer. That’s nonsense.
Drinkwitz is a RuNdAbAwLeR. Missouri has run the ball 61% of the time this year and pass attempted 38%. Ahmad Hardy has 200 rushes and 6 receptions on the year. He’s touched the ball on 27% percent of all the plays they’ve ran this year. RuNdAbAwLeRs rule, and Hardy would have never committed or signed up for your sissy 7 on 7 Canadian niche offense.
that Shapen number should be criminal. If he is misreading RPOs, shame on coaches for giving him options. If coaches are calling that many run plays for him, shame on coaches for being stupid.
Post #6 above. I meant that we simply have to offer these guys in high school because if we don't, we have no chance in the portal. While we have a better chance of landing in-state players for obvious reasons, it also works the other way if we do not recruit them. That's true of every player everywhere. That is all I meant.
In the case of Hardy, we really didn't have a shot in the portal because we had overlooked him in high school. It's a tale as old as time.
With all the staff we have now, we should have people whose only job is to mine MS for these type of guys. We should know the name of every kid in MS high school and JUCO ball. Invest in the strength/conditioning and nutrition program. Focus on defensive and offensive line depth. Make this the basis of our program. Not too different from what Nebraska used to do, and sort of what Texas Tech is doing now.
Then the portal takes care of the rest - and this can be based on your coaching staff's offensive preference. We won't have Texas Tech money, but we can be formidable. Truth be known, it'll likely be offense that's heavy in the portal - I'd prefer to develop defense in house if at all possible with homegrown players and pay them to stay. MS produces these, we all know that.
But we'd have to commit to it long term. We'd need a very dedicated Keenum and whoever the AD would be.
But it sounds like he wasn’t offered at all. Not early.
I have to give it to Mullen. He found guys like this. Darius Slay may would be working some job now around his hometown instead of wearing a Super Bowl ring if not for Mullen. Slay was even underrated here while playing. All the attention was on Jonathan Banks. Primarily because Slay was locking down his own side.
Chris Jones was also not on anyone’s radar until Mullen got him to camp.
Don't have to go in the details on Prescott.
Dillon Day.. Ritchie brown.. etc etc.
He’s run the ball because he has Pribula and now a non throwing Zollers and he has a nfl back in Hardy.
Brady Cook threw the ball
Yup. Morons keep coming with this run/pass percentage garbage acting like that means you shouldn’t throw. Just aggressively stupid. All those offenses use downfield passing to open up the runs.
The key is what type of personnel you have. If they can’t routinely get the guys necessary to get behind defenses, you need a more horizontal attack like an air raid.
You need to get over to ED and get educated by Peaches and StarkVegas Steve on how Lebbo has this program on track for a playoff appearance next year.
Drink is a career RuNdAbAwLeR. Over 11 season at 4 different places, excluding even sacks and kneels, Drinkwitz has run the ball 58% off the time as listed as the OC or head coach. This doesn’t even count the time spent before that with Gus Malzahn at 3 different places. You know Gus likes to RuNdAbAwL.
No one has said you shouldn’t throw the ball. The point is that you’re wrong here. Drinkwitz offenses start with downhill runs and constraints such as RPOs and screens to open up the passes. Drink is a true RuNdAbAwLeR.
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Well, I guess that makes sense. By “early” I simply thought you meant early in the HS recruiting cycle.
Regardless, Hardy was overlooked even by Sun Belt teams. Who knows where he was headed if ULM didn’t get beat out for whoever it was that allowed him to get a signing day offer from them. I mean he might have landed in the SWAC or something. We can only conclude that there was a major red flag somewhere. Missed a lot of time due to injury, slow 40-time, something had to be scaring people away.
Meh, I think he’d get over his hurt feelings pretty quick if the money was right. On the flip side, Missouri’s offense is much more favorable for showcasing his abilities. Still plenty of room for his decision to not center around hurt feelings either way.
Besides, are we all convinced that he’s a better pull than Bothwell? Fluff averaged 7.5 YPC at South Alabama. Hardy was 5.7 YPC at ULM. I think I’ll take Fluff. Ultimately our offense isn’t going to be very attractive to bellcow RB’s, from the looks of things. We don’t seem to be committed to getting the OL needed for those types of guys to have success.