He is a stronger tougher MO Washington. He did OK getting to the edge. Glad Parker is tougher mentally.
Not with NIL. Scholarship numbers don't matter anymore. Get them an NIL deal equal to a scholarship.
I think that side has much to prove based on just last year and that includes the coaches. The OL/RB and run game is a big area of concern.
Dowdell looked like the next coming of Roger Craig in the spring scrimmage. High knees tackle breaking big back who was tough to tackle. IF he can show in the B1G what he showed in the spring game he’ll be just fine.
If he's 75% the talent at NU that Craig was (minus all his fumbles) I'll be happy. As far as speed, he's nowhere near as fast as Craig was in college Dowdell has decent speed, far from the kind of back that's gonna go 94 or 95 yards against FSU like Roger did.
lol, he's much smaller than MO.. not even close to being a comparison other than MO couldn't run inside either.
This. EJ is the only one that has shown that he has the ability to be good.
Word on the street is that they aren’t super impressed with him. He’s not that franchise RB that the are still looking for.
Yeah i mean he was okay. Besides that long run not sure if I thought he was breaking all these tackles.
A running back who couldn't make it at a big program isn't going to turn into a franchise running back here. They need to either recruit a franchise running back out of high school or get a high achiever from a smaller school. Our running back recruiting has been pretty pathetic over the past 10 years or so.
And I said this so many times before I sound like a broken record, but a lot of people spent so much time lamenting Rhule's retention of Coach Raiola they never stopped to look at how potent he has been on the recruiting side of things. Meanwhile, Barthel can't land a B10 back. I doubt things will change even if Parker doesn't pan out and the backs drop balls. EJ has been with Rhule a long time and I doubt Rhule would look in a different direction unless the room unraveled.
Im struggling to remember any RB that was here the past 10 years. I remember the Missouri guy who retired with the bad knees, amanti cross, and Anthony grant.
Ozigbo was probably the best RB we’ve had in the past 10 years. But he was really good only his senior year.
Yep. Had heard a lot of the same. I know an Oregon booster as well that said he was just mehhhh.
I think his point being Palmer wasn't a starter at LSU, yet transfered to NU and basically played like franchise player. Of course he was a WR.
Palmer was probably a unique situation. I think he followed Mickey Joseph here.
Meh speed. Still a guy DBs will struggle to tackle. He trucked a couple of guys in that scrimmage who are going to play on D for us.
I never get excited about these types of transfers. To me it’s a red flag when all that gets brought up is how many stars a kid had back after their junior year of HS. That stuff is so inaccurate.
Exactly... Were some watching a different spring game? Other than the big run, I saw a back who embraced contact and lowered his shoulders to punish defenders. Size and speed with power and caught a ball or two. What else more do you need other than have the big guy work toward perfecting his pass blocking?
Tre Bryant. Could've been a real good one had his knees not fail him.
I think Terrell Newby was pretty solid too. I agree though, Ozigbo was still probably the best.
I remember in HS our coach said to our O-line one time, "Even Barry Sanders couldn't have gotten positive yards with that blocking."
