Texas Longhorns Running Back Cody Johnson is DOOMED!

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So, we see that Cody has now been named as the FOURTH “starting” RB for the Longhorns for the tenth game of the season.  Gee, there’s a shocker, huh?

Let’s recap how the season has progressed at this position thus far:

Vondrell McGee was the starting RB on opening day, and held that position through the game with Wyoming.  He proceeded to rush for a nifty 70 yards and 4.7 average in game one against ULM, and followed that up with 61 yards against Wyoming. 

But he had a problem in the Wyoming game—he was in for virtually all of the first half, during which Wyoming’s defense was fresh and did a good job of stuffing our run game.  Tre’ Newton played much of the second half, as Wyoming’s D got gassed, and (surprise!) was able to look very damn good playing against exhausted players.

The following week against Tech, a similar pattern emerged.  Vondrell was not able to get anything going against a fresh Raider defense, and then suffered a minor injury.  In comes Tre’ Newton, who looked better and better as the game went on, ultimately putting up 88 yards, most of it in the second half as the Tech defense tired.  Shocker.

The following Monday, the Texas coaches named Newton the starter for the UTEP game.  Bad news for Tre’, as it turned out.

Tre’ thus had to get most of the first half carries against the Miners, again when their defense was fresh and thus dominating our mediocre offensive line in the run game.  He ended up being basically pulled for the second half, during which the ground game went berserk against an exhausted UTEP D, with Vondrell putting up a Longhorn season-high 102 yards for the game.

New starter for Colorado:  Vondrell.  We were all stunned, right?  Wrong.

Again, the same pattern repeated itself.  Vondrell was ineffective in the first half against a fresh CU defense.   The RB by committee approach returns in the second half, and frankly didn’t improve things at all as Texas totaled a whopping 46 yards on 25 attempts for the game, the worst effort of the year in a season that has been almost uniformly awful for the Longhorn running game.

But Fozzy Whittaker, seeing his first action of the year, gained 12 yards on one impressive carry, and guess who becomes the starting RB for the OU game?

If you guessed Fozzy Whittaker, you’re far from alone, so don’t be too impressed with yourself.

Fozzy had an awesome game against OU—at least, it was awesome in the context of the performance of the running game in this particular season—whipping up 71 yards against a very good Sooner defense.  So, holy cow, Texas actually had a guy starting at RB for two straight games when the ‘Horns traveled to Missouri the following week.

But even though Fozzy was the starter vs. the Tigers and managed a two-yard average on mostly first-half carries, the RB by committee reared its head once again, and he was limited to nine total carries, as Cody Johnson began to see his action increased.  You can see what’s coming, can’t you?

Fozzy was again the starter against OSU—three straight weeks—but again, saw his action decreased, as Johnson’s ramped up, and Colt became more involved in the running game.  Fozzy, the starter, carried only six times, Johnson nine and Colt 11.  Fozzy’s days as the starter, playing against the fresh defense, were obviously numbered.

Last week against UCF, Fozzy again was the starter, and yet again saw his participation limited to the third most carries, behind Johnson and McCoy.  Cody did a good job of getting the ball into the endzone with two long red zone runs, finishing with 44 total yards, 33 of them coming on the two TD runs.

On this season’s Texas team, that performance is plenty to earn a guy the starting RB job.

And so it was that yesterday, Cody Johnson was named the starting RB for this week’s game against Baylor.

Obviously, he is doomed.  He will now have to take the most carries early in the game when the Baylor defense will be fresh and will almost certainly dominate our offensive line in the running game.  He will probably see his YPC diminish as a result, and probably see himself yanked unfairly from the game just about the time the Baylor D begins to tire.  Whichever back comes in to take his place and gets the most second half carries as the Baylor D becomes exhausted will likely put up better stats, and begin to regain favor with the Texas coaching staff.

Sad to say, Cody’s days as the starter are probably numbered.  This appears to be the “system” the staff is using these days, such as it is.

Enjoy it while you can, big guy.

Hook ‘em!!!

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This article was written by EyesofTX of Barking Carnival  

Follow Barking Carnival on Twitter: @BarkingCarnival

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