Free for all Friday: What will our yardage splits be?

[DawgatAuburn]

In Dan the Man's four years, we have watched our rushing and passing totals move in opposite directions. In 2009, with Dixon and Tyson Lee, we were run heavy. Last year, we were significantly more pass heavy. To wit, here are the yards per game:

2009
227.6 rushing
144.3 passing (372 tot)

2010
214.8 rushing
186.5 passing (401 tot)

2011
175.3 rushing
181.8 passing (357 tot)

2012
144.2 rushing
237.8 passing (382 tot)

Note that rushing has declined in each of the four years, and other than nearly identical numbers in 2010 and 2011, passing has gone steadily up. Obviously a lot of that is personnel driven.

I am hoping that this year we see the rushing trend reverse itself. While I do love the thought of Russell slinging it all over the field and moving the chains in large chunks at a time, I don't have the confidence in our receivers that we can do that with any consistency, not to mention our tackles providing protection long enough for Tyler to find his man and deliver a strike. The backs, on the other hand, may be the deepest unit on the team. I'm guessing that we commit a little more to the run this year and we end up pretty balanced, with something like 180 rushing/200 passing.

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[SignalToNoise]

QB protection wasn't really an issue last year, so not sure why it would be this year. I think we gave up the second fewest sacks in the SEC.

 

[Seinfeld]

I'm going to go with 45/55(rushing/passing). While I'd love to see Russell consistently throw for 250/game, I just don't see it with the lack of experience in our receiving corp. I also think that we'll see Dak a little more this year, so I'd have to agree that somewhere around a 180/200 yd attack is likely.

 

[DawgatAuburn]

Good point.