Interesting article on JJ's role Saturday
- Thread starter kreggk
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A stupid article on a couple of fronts. This guy has decided our offense is "bereft of talent" before we've played a down. Given the offer sheets some of our recruits had, I'd say there is a little talent available. Jackson is certainly polished enough to dissect on offense if he's given adequate blocking, which he's proven multiple times on both the high school and college levels. It all comes down to whether he can get adequate blocking and enough help from the other guys to be successful, which is the one thing the writer got correct. But then, no running back is going anywhere without blocking.
Sorry, I respectfully disagree. Sweetness punished defenders when he finished runs. JJ tries to elude contact, which is a smart strategy for a man his size. I see no resemblance between the two.
Poorly-written, ill-conceived article from a guy with no actual football background or particular insight. Basically says "it will take good performances from everyone on offense for Northwestern to beat Stanford."
Shocking.
I always saw JJ as being similar to OJ Simpson (except for the whole murdering your wife and her lover thing). OJ is obviously faster than JJ, but both have the more upright running style and use their vision. Both make running the ball look effortless.
It's the typical Northwestern isn't very good story line that the media knows they can get away with. Our RS Freshman QB can't be very good even though he beat out a 5th year QB. If this was RS Freshman QB winning the job at a traditional power, the same idiot would be putting him in Heisman contention.
You don't remember Jackson lowering his shoulder and knocking that defensive back ass-over-teakettle last season? He's also got more size this year.
Anyone happen to see the 30 on 30 episode on marcus dupree last night? Talk about upright running and making running look effortless. Amazing athlete and what a story - tragic in so many ways.
I agree with you. The thing I notice when I watch JJ run is that you better wrap him up. If you try to tackle him by just slamming into him, he'll bounce right off that and keep going. He has incredible balance.
I saw it awhile back. If I remember correctly, I saw it as typical media BS of trying to take a story and make it look pretty for everyone. They wanted to make it into a tragic story, but really it's a story about a kid who believed his hype too much. He got into it with Barry Switzer, showed up out of shape, transferred because he couldn't deal with a tough coach, sat out a year, went to the USFL to get paid, and didn't do much. Then 5 years later tried the NFL... and didn't do much. By the movie, Dupree learned humility, but nobody taught him that until well after college. The tragedy is how we treat kids as heroes instead of being their heroes. That's a societal tragedy with or without Dupree who was a punk kid.
In forty years of watching football, about the only guy I can think of who could, with that kind of regularity, make something out of situations in which he had no blocking help at all was Byron Sanders' kid brother. As a Bear fan, I have no love for the Lions . . . but he had to be about the most unique running back I've ever seen.
Agree on the balance point. After his agility and his vision, that's his strongest quality. Though I don't think it's directly an attribute in Madden...
I agree Kreeg. I watched a lot of Walter Payton and JJ reminded me of him last season. Two things; one is he seems to be able to keep his feet after being hit and this allows him to run out of tackles because the tackler has lost his feet, the second is the stiff arm, you don't see a lot of that anymore.
Shakes has a point that he is not as punishing a runner but he was only 18 and will not be at his full weight for a couple more years. How punishing might JJ be with 10 more lbs in his thighs ten more in his upper body. I doubt they would even let JJ put his head down and smash people the way Payton did. I have never seen any film on Payton when he was a freshman. My guess is Payton may have been faster at that point of his career.
Walter is my favorite football player of all time! If he had Emmit Smith's line and offense around him, he would have run for 20 thousand yards.
JJ is my favorite NU runner of all time and sheepishly I say Mike Adamle is a friend of mine, sorry Mike! What I see in JJ is this...He always falls forward! That is Paytonesque at the very least. I see him as a very physical for his size. Let's remember he was 185 last year and he is clearly not afraid of plastic. His vision though and his patience and ability to narrow his body to squirt through holes is utterly amazing for a then freshman last year.
I believe the sky is the limit for this kid and with Long and Anderson playing JJ should stay a little more tested through the season.
This season is an enigma to me, lots of ifs but those ifs turn positive this could easily be IMO one of the most explosive offenses NU has ever had!
JJ is my favorite NU runner of all time and sheepishly I say Mike Adamle is a friend of mine, sorry Mike! What I see in JJ is this...He always falls forward! That is Paytonesque at the very least. I see him as a very physical for his size. Let's remember he was 185 last year and he is clearly not afraid of plastic. His vision though and his patience and ability to narrow his body to squirt through holes is utterly amazing for a then freshman last year.
I believe the sky is the limit for this kid and with Long and Anderson playing JJ should stay a little more tested through the season.
This season is an enigma to me, lots of ifs but those ifs turn positive this could easily be IMO one of the most explosive offenses NU has ever had!
That's a bit much. It was pretty clear that he didn't have good adult influences and was steered into decisions that were good for the adults around him and pretty bad for Dupree.
