re: Some rumblings and updates in regards to portal players

Dylan Stewart wasn’t going anywhere!

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Berry can see holes much, much better.

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he eye test tells you all you need to know.

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why does Durham have better numbers? More big runs, more forced missed tackles, more yards after contact?

We need to keep both. Another school leads for the other guy mentioned.

Durham lead the team in yards with 505 on 106 carries for an average of 4.76 y/a with a long of 51. Berry had 446 on 101 carries for an average of 4.42 and a long of 43. Durham had 16 receptions for 91 yards (5.7 y/r). Berry had 8 for 32 (4.0 y/r). (Berry was way underused in the passing game imo).

Durham
SEC games—63 attempts for 369 yards (5.86)
Non Con—43 attempts for 136 (3.16)

Berry
SEC games—69 attempts for 281 (4.07)
Non Con—32 for 165 (5.16)

(Berry’s best game was against Western Kentucky where he had 18 carries for 80 yards with a long of 25. One of his only 3 20+ yard runs all season)

Durham had 9 carries of 10+ yards and 6 of 20+. Berry had 10 carries of 10+ yards, and only 3 of 20+. But this stat stood out to me, and why I think they are very complementary backs:

On 1st down:
Durham—3.96 yards/attempt
Berry—4.19 yards/attempt

On 2nd down:
Durham—3.80 yards/attempt
Berry—5.38 yards/attempt

On 3rd down:
Durham—8.45 yards/attempt
Berry—3.31 yards/attempt

3rd down 1-3 yards to go:
Durham—5.67 yards/attempt
Berry—3.10 yards/attemtp

3rd down 4-6 yards to go:
Durham—21.25 yards/attempt (4 carries for 85 yards)
Berry—0 carries

So these guys had pretty similar stats, but Durham had the slightly better season. But the point was not to say that Durham is better or has the higher ceiling, it’s just that he is severely underrated, especially considering he played the whole season hurt and behind that terrible OL.

Berry played behind it too, but his style is to be a little more patient and wait just a split second longer to let the hole (hopefully) open before hitting it, which is why he was slightly more successful on early downs and that skewed our perceptions a bit.

But think about it, if the biggest knock on Durham is that he broke a lot of big runs but was caught from behind before he could score, that’s not really a valid criticism to dismiss him. Again, our perception was skewed because we had maybe the worst offense in the country converting red zone touchdowns, so we knew if he didn’t house those, it was probably gonna cost us 4, if not 7 points. Had we been just average in scoring TDs inside the red zone and we wind up punching those in for touchdowns a couple of plays later, we wouldn’t even remember that he got chased down. Or we would have forgiven it and chalked it up to his injuries taking a bit of his speed away. Which is 100% accurate.

Tl;dr—the eye test absolutely lies. Durham had the better season despite playing hurt the whole time. Hard to tell who has the higher ceiling because they’re such different backs. I’m with Lester, though, Berry needs to be way more involved in the passing game. He’s not an 18-20 carry/game back. Not in the gauntlet that is the 9-game SEC with hopefully a playoff game or 2 tacked on. He needs to be split out and used in the short passing game where he can make a guy miss in the open field and get up it.

Who is more “valuable,” depends on how they’re used and in what system. I’d prefer to keep them both, but if I had to choose, I’d take Berry as long as we were definitely getting somebody like Lacy. He’s more complimentary to a bell cow, more versatile, and has less tread and 1 more year of eligibility. If we strike out in the portal and either one has to be our #1, though, I think Durham’s style is more suited to that. But either one with a decent-good OL could be really good.

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Most probably didn’t expect USCe to blow $5 mil on just 3 players from a 4 win team with a coach on the hot seat

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$5M for 3 players especially including a likely NFL QB is dirt cheap.

I have been trying to point this out to people for a while now. This kind of stuff seems to happen every season. The old eye test that ignores reality.