re: What’s up with Caden Durham?

quote:

---

Dead on, he has all the physical traits but lacks the most important thing “vision”

---

I made a similar comment on vision but in thinking more about it I dont know how his "vision" is in Lane's running game. We ran some version of zone read all the damn time and the QB never ran the ball so every RB we had ran into a wall of defenders.

Here is to something different this season!

TIL Durham is still at LSU.

quote:

---

I don't think his vision is that poor. I just think he doesn't have great explosive traits or elite speed.

---

Its literally the opposite. You need to actually look at his history. He doesn't get a lot of 4-5 yard runs on a consistent basis. He created a lot of explosive plays in the run and pass game.

quote:

---

Then you see a guy like Jeremy Hill. He didn't have an elite 40 time (he ran a 4.6 at the combine). However, DBs and LBs rarely ran him down from behind.

---

Situations are not the same. Jeremy Hill was in a pro-style offense and majority of those "long runs" were out of 21 or 12 personnel and against a heavy box (7-8 defenders). Therefore if you broke through the first level and made the first guy miss you were clear to the endzone. Jeremy Hill did have very good top end speed as well but all of Caden's big runs except for the run last year against Florida were in spread formations 11 or 10 personnel with lighter boxes so he was having more defenders deep to try and out-run. If you look at his '24 season he was creating explosive plays on very good clip and his top end speed was still very good. But was slightly less than '24. Now that could be because he had less long runs where he could get out the gates or could be from being nicked last season.

Lane said something to the media a week or two ago that kind of stuck with me. One of the reporters asked him a question about the offensive line and added that it was "clearly the biggest problem with the team last year".. The first thing he said when he responded was "Yea but you also have guys that are running the ball that have to run it"... To me, that implies that they saw some things on film that wasn't on the line and more on the RB's... Seems like what we are seeing now with Durham getting pushed down the depth chart and Berry working as the back up reflect that a bit

He was never the same after Miles Frazier fell and rolled up on his ankle

That was the most atrocious offensive line play I have seen since the late 90s. If the 'vision' is every lane closed and two of your blockers are pancaking air, of course he's going to look bad. I couldn't tell you how many but it was often that some carries for no gain were actually blown up in the backfield and the runner just out-talented the defense to get back to the line of scrimmage.