I recruited a guy named Stephen Sanders in my second season. He was I believe a 3 star athlete from somewhere in Texas. He stood 6'3, weighed 230 pounds, and I thought for sure would make one of those athletic tight ends. Turns out after the first season he was a sucky tight end because his blocking skills were not very good. I had a ton of depth at HB so I made him a WR. He playing sparingly his first season to keep the promise of no redshirt. He had decent speed but his ball carrying skills were amazing. He literally ran over smaller players like they were speed bumps.
I redshirted him in my third season because I had quite a few veteran players back expected to contribute at WR.
Going into my fourth season I saw this guy buried on the depth chart again, probably 6th or 7th as a 74 overall WR. I saw his body size and began to look at other places he could play. His tackling skills were lacking so offense was off the table. His blocking skills were bad so FB/TE was not an option. He wasn't a QB so it was pointless to put him there. I saw his 80+ skills in carrying and trucking and realized I was going about this all wrong. Here I had a complete beast, perhaps Eddie George 2.0 on my team, and I was burying him at WR because I hadn't taken a few seconds to see this guy was a natural born bruiser.
So I moved him to HB, where he was third on the depth chart at 76 overall. I had a true sophomore coming back who had some carries last season and a couple third year sophomores who had carries in previous seasons. I figured Sanders could get some carries as I love splitting carries among 2-3 guys in the backfield.
It took about one quarter of the first game to realize that Stephen Sanders was not going to be denied carries. Even though I was blasting lowly New Mexico St., I could see this guy was special. My other HBs made some great runs, but Sanders moved piles. He was a complete pain to bring down, even in the second game against in-state doormat Ball St. Sanders was injured early and still ran for 100 yards and 3 TDs.
Then came what I thought would be the biggest test. Playing on the road against #6 Nebraska, in front of a packed house of hostile Cornhuskers. Sanders simply ran for 225 yards, including a 97 yard TD where he broke out of a sure tackle inside the 10 yard line and continued to outrun the entire Nebraska defense to the end zone.
This three star athlete that wasted away for two seasons at WR, that I basically didn't even give a second look to otherwise, is now leading the nation in rushing at 148.6 YPG after three games, to go along with 5 rushing TDs. I've even begun to call him Superman Sanders because guys sometimes just bounce off of him when they try to make a play. He's easily my best offensive player despite having real life guys like O.J. Ross and Gary Bush still playing at WR. He started the Nebraska game and will probably start every game he wants to for the rest of his career. I have a 5 star HB from Illinois that I'm recruiting but I'm not sure where he would fit into my backfield with Sanders being so beastly.
My offense is a lot of running the ball to control the clock, and this guy seems like he could take 25-30 carries a game sometimes.
I redshirted him in my third season because I had quite a few veteran players back expected to contribute at WR.
Going into my fourth season I saw this guy buried on the depth chart again, probably 6th or 7th as a 74 overall WR. I saw his body size and began to look at other places he could play. His tackling skills were lacking so offense was off the table. His blocking skills were bad so FB/TE was not an option. He wasn't a QB so it was pointless to put him there. I saw his 80+ skills in carrying and trucking and realized I was going about this all wrong. Here I had a complete beast, perhaps Eddie George 2.0 on my team, and I was burying him at WR because I hadn't taken a few seconds to see this guy was a natural born bruiser.
So I moved him to HB, where he was third on the depth chart at 76 overall. I had a true sophomore coming back who had some carries last season and a couple third year sophomores who had carries in previous seasons. I figured Sanders could get some carries as I love splitting carries among 2-3 guys in the backfield.
It took about one quarter of the first game to realize that Stephen Sanders was not going to be denied carries. Even though I was blasting lowly New Mexico St., I could see this guy was special. My other HBs made some great runs, but Sanders moved piles. He was a complete pain to bring down, even in the second game against in-state doormat Ball St. Sanders was injured early and still ran for 100 yards and 3 TDs.
Then came what I thought would be the biggest test. Playing on the road against #6 Nebraska, in front of a packed house of hostile Cornhuskers. Sanders simply ran for 225 yards, including a 97 yard TD where he broke out of a sure tackle inside the 10 yard line and continued to outrun the entire Nebraska defense to the end zone.
This three star athlete that wasted away for two seasons at WR, that I basically didn't even give a second look to otherwise, is now leading the nation in rushing at 148.6 YPG after three games, to go along with 5 rushing TDs. I've even begun to call him Superman Sanders because guys sometimes just bounce off of him when they try to make a play. He's easily my best offensive player despite having real life guys like O.J. Ross and Gary Bush still playing at WR. He started the Nebraska game and will probably start every game he wants to for the rest of his career. I have a 5 star HB from Illinois that I'm recruiting but I'm not sure where he would fit into my backfield with Sanders being so beastly.
My offense is a lot of running the ball to control the clock, and this guy seems like he could take 25-30 carries a game sometimes.
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