Alvin Kamara fastest ever

[spacificislander]

You make a lot of noise while providing little evidence. Yes, Kamara developed into a star that he is today. No, that is clearly not evidence that when he was 20 years old he should have been used more.
Your entire argument boils down to "because of Kamara's NFL success, Butch should have played him more". You're the guy who thinks that having the outcome means you should have made a different wager.
Hurd was well on his way to setting the rushing record. You present only evidence of his post facto success as being a reason he was under utilized, and no collegiate evidence of why he deserved a "higher touch disparity".
Besides that he was a third round NFL draft pick, had plenty of yards, and plenty of TDS at the collegiate level.
It's also funny that had he gotten say twice as many college touches as he did, it would have added wear and tear on his body, decreasing his NFL playing career.
production is much more valuable than "touches"

Kamari had way more YPC (6.2) than Hurd (4.4) at UT. When the second guy is averaging like 2 more YPC than the first guy, maybe switch em?

 

[goldvol]

Kamari had way more YPC (6.2) than Hurd (4.4) at UT. When the second guy is averaging like 2 more YPC than the first guy, maybe switch em?

you see the same stat on team after team. It makes sense that the change of pace guy, the guy who isnt tired, the guy who comes in after the team is way ahead, the guy who plays against the second string, gets better ypc.
Trey Sanders for Bama had 6.3 ypc. Darrynton Evans had more ypc than Derrick Henry Sunday. Heck, Ty Montgomery had 4 ypc Monday night for the Saints, compared to 2.6 for Kamara. You would bench Kamara in favor of that? These are literally the first three games I looked at. It's very common for the backup to have more yards per attempt.

 

[Chilmonty]

Hurd was better!

Sincerely,
Butch Jones

 

[VolsSince78]

you see the same stat on team after team. It makes sense that the change of pace guy, the guy who isnt tired, the guy who comes in after the team is way ahead, the guy who plays against the second string, gets better ypc.
Trey Sanders for Bama had 6.3 ypc. Darrynton Evans had more ypc than Derrick Henry Sunday. Heck, Ty Montgomery had 4 ypc Monday night for the Saints, compared to 2.6 for Kamara. You would bench Kamara in favor of that? These are literally the first three games I looked at. It's very common for the backup to have more yards per attempt.

Kamara was clearly a superior RB to Hurd in college. It was obvious, even without benefit of hindsight.

Kamara is one of several RBs I’ve seen at UT who were superior to Hurd in ability. That’s based on ability shown in college, not NFL. I think the closest comp to Hurd was Hardesty, but yep Hurd was more durable at UT than Hardesty.

The bit about Kamara running against the 2s is bunk. Kamara alternated with Hurd throughout games, not at the end.

I appreciated Hurd’s contributions while he was at UT. But, I see no way to justify a 2:1 Hurd to Kamara touch ratio from an Offense efficiency standpoint.

 

[hndog609]

You make a lot of noise while providing little evidence. Yes, Kamara developed into a star that he is today. No, that is clearly not evidence that when he was 20 years old he should have been used more.
Your entire argument boils down to "because of Kamara's NFL success, Butch should have played him more". You're the guy who thinks that having the outcome means you should have made a different wager.
Hurd was well on his way to setting the rushing record. You present only evidence of his post facto success as being a reason he was under utilized, and no collegiate evidence of why he deserved a "higher touch disparity".
Besides that he was a third round NFL draft pick, had plenty of yards, and plenty of TDS at the collegiate level.
It's also funny that had he gotten say twice as many college touches as he did, it would have added wear and tear on his body, decreasing his NFL playing career.
production is much more valuable than "touches"

It's amusing you accuse me of "noise" vs evidence. (I guess on the field results don't count as "evidence" in your world) You have some funny definitions.

Maybe if you don't want the NFL/Jones/Payton comparison don't open with this:

you may be right, but not regarding his use of Alvin Kamara. unless you also think Sean Payton is an idiot.

And for what, at least the 3rd time, why are you bringing up career rushing* and draft positions? Then you're what, trying to figure out a way to give credit Jones for saving wear on Alvin's tires. I mean, obviously that should be the priority for a college coach trying to win college games, right? (remember me accusing you of non sequiturs?)

Frankly you're coming across as some kind of Hurd apologist. (nevermind you obviously ignoring the carries/touches I cited after Hurd was gone) So the question becomes exactly what the hell would you expect Kamara to do to address this "why he deserved a "higher touch disparity" thing? It's interesting how I have to keep repeating but here we go again.

In Kamara's first game as a Vol he racked up 144y and 2tds on only 15c. That was at the time (and still may be) the most yards in in a debut by any Vol RB. He wouldn't see more than 7 carries again 'til game 10. In those 8 games he averaged a paltry 5 carry attempts. For his career here when he actually was given the opportunity to have at least 7 (7!) carries in a game he managed 1065y at 6.6ypc. Then there's this I put together for a post in another thread.

Alvin has 210 carries in his UT career. That's an absolute number so that's pretty much that. How can we best compare that to Hurd's 589? Mind you my first inclination (and probably the most fair) was to only include games during times they both played together. (same OL, same opp defense) but I figured what the hell, let's have all 33 of Hurd's games in play. (good thing for Hurd too since half the games came from '14) So what we're going to do is take the 10 best ypc games from Hurd's whole career +1 to compare to Kamara's raw, un-cherrypicked career carries.

Hurds top 10 career best ypc games total 194 carries. The next highest ypc game that came closest to reaching 210 was a 15 carry game so it only makes 209 but I think that's plenty close enough to 210 for our purposes. So, again, cherrypicking the best ypc performances of Hurd's career that add up to Kamara's straight up career carries.

Hurd 209-1186-5.7
Kamara 210-1294-6.2

Really though the one stat that arguably jumps out the most is the yardage games. Now remember Hurd had 30 games with at least 10 carries and 14 games of at least 20. Kamara only had 10 games of at least 10 carries, all of 5 of 15 and never more than 18 in a game his whole career. Even with this huge disparity in opportunity here's the top 6 rushing games 2014-2016

151 Hurd
144 Kamara
130 Hurd
128 Kamara
127 Kamara
127 Kamara

So is this just "noise" or am I too caught up on the NFL part?

 

[goldvol]

It's amusing you accuse me of "noise" vs evidence. (I guess on the field results don't count as "evidence" in your world) You have some funny definitions.

Maybe if you don't want the NFL/Jones/Payton comparison don't open with this:



And for what, at least the 3rd time, why are you bringing up career rushing* and draft positions? Then you're what, trying to figure out a way to give credit Jones for saving wear on Alvin's tires. I mean, obviously that should be the priority for a college coach trying to win college games, right? (remember me accusing you of non sequiturs?)

Frankly you're coming across as some kind of Hurd apologist. (nevermind you obviously ignoring the carries/touches I cited after Hurd was gone) So the question becomes exactly what the hell would you expect Kamara to do to address this "why he deserved a "higher touch disparity" thing? It's interesting how I have to keep repeating but here we go again.

In Kamara's first game as a Vol he racked up 144y and 2tds on only 15c. That was at the time (and still may be) the most yards in in a debut by any Vol RB. He wouldn't see more than 7 carries again 'til game 10. In those 8 games he averaged a paltry 5 carry attempts. For his career here when he actually was given the opportunity to have at least 7 (7!) carries in a game he managed 1065y at 6.6ypc. Then there's this I put together for a post in another thread.

Alvin has 210 carries in his UT career. That's an absolute number so that's pretty much that. How can we best compare that to Hurd's 589? Mind you my first inclination (and probably the most fair) was to only include games during times they both played together. (same OL, same opp defense) but I figured what the hell, let's have all 33 of Hurd's games in play. (good thing for Hurd too since half the games came from '14) So what we're going to do is take the 10 best ypc games from Hurd's whole career +1 to compare to Kamara's raw, un-cherrypicked career carries.

Hurds top 10 career best ypc games total 194 carries. The next highest ypc game that came closest to reaching 210 was a 15 carry game so it only makes 209 but I think that's plenty close enough to 210 for our purposes. So, again, cherrypicking the best ypc performances of Hurd's career that add up to Kamara's straight up career carries.

Hurd 209-1186-5.7
Kamara 210-1294-6.2

Really though the one stat that arguably jumps out the most is the yardage games. Now remember Hurd had 30 games with at least 10 carries and 14 games of at least 20. Kamara only had 10 games of at least 10 carries, all of 5 of 15 and never more than 18 in a game his whole career. Even with this huge disparity in opportunity here's the top 6 rushing games 2014-2016

151 Hurd
144 Kamara
130 Hurd
128 Kamara
127 Kamara
127 Kamara

So is this just "noise" or am I too caught up on the NFL part?

Thanks for providing all the information about how well Kamara did. Sure sounds like you're trying to prove my point that Kamara was utilized well by Jones

 

[hndog609]

Thanks for providing all the information about how well Kamara did. Sure sounds like you're trying to prove my point that Kamara was utilized well by Jones

LOL! If that's what you took from that (Look what this guy did given limited opportunity! Only a crazy person would think more opportunity would be deserved based on that, right?) then carry on with your bad self because I'd wager that's not the conclusion most will reach.

 

[LittleVol]

How in the world Botch Jones didn't just line up Dobbs ,Kamara, and Hurd all in the same backfield is mind boggling. 95 Nebraska wishbone style. Would of been nasty beyond belief.

That's what he did...

 

[spacificislander]

you see the same stat on team after team. It makes sense that the change of pace guy, the guy who isnt tired, the guy who comes in after the team is way ahead, the guy who plays against the second string, gets better ypc.
Trey Sanders for Bama had 6.3 ypc. Darrynton Evans had more ypc than Derrick Henry Sunday. Heck, Ty Montgomery had 4 ypc Monday night for the Saints, compared to 2.6 for Kamara. You would bench Kamara in favor of that? These are literally the first three games I looked at. It's very common for the backup to have more yards per attempt.

That was their career YPC at UT, when they were both used. Not 1 game.
Career wise, Darrynton Evans is 3.8 and Derrick Henry is 4.9. Which would have me think (correctly) that Derrick Henry is the better back.

I think over their careers, better backs rush for more YPC. Jim Brown, Gale Sayers, Barry Sanders all over 5 YPC. We could have definitely used Kamara more at UT, even an eye test should tell you that. He was capable of breaking a TD against anyone, Hurd wasn't. It worked out well for everyone, Jones didn't use him enough, didn't coach well in general and got fired. Kamara is doing great in the NFL, and we have a better coach than Jones now.