Nebraska Football: Cornhuskers Increasing Running Back Rotation?

Nebraska football fans have had some angst about the running back rotation for the past few years. Two years ago, Nebraska signed three blue-chip running back prospects in Aaron Green, Braylon Heard and Ameer Abdullah.

Fast-forward two years, and only one of those players is still on the team. Most believe that the others transferred because they were not getting sufficient playing time.

One recurring criticism of head coach Bo Pelini is that he under-utilizes the running backs on his squad.

Does he? Let’s see.

Here’s a look at how the leading rusher for Nebraska during Bo Pelini’s tenure has stacked up compared to the rest of the team.

Year	Lead Back	Lead Back Carries	Lead Back Yards	Team Carries	Team Yards	RB Carries	RB Yards
2008	Helu*	125	803	487	2210	371	1890
2009	Helu	220	1147	512	2059	362	1733
2010	Helu	188	1245	634	3466	400	2325
2011	Burkhead	283	1357	611	2824	379	1764
2012	Abdullah	226	1137	662	3547	431	2484
2013	Abdullah	157	1108	388	2093	294	1818

* It should be noted that in 2008, both Marlon Lucky and Roy Helu ended the season with 125 carries. I included Helu as the leading rusher because he was more productive with his carries than Lucky.

To get a better perspective, here is how the carries and yardage of the lead back compare to the rest of the team in percentage format.

Year	Lead Back	% of all carries	% of all yards	% of RB carries	% of RB yards
2008	Helu	25.6	36.3	33.6	42.5
2009	Helu	42.9	55.7	60.8	66.2
2010	Helu	29.7	35.9	47.0	53.5
2011	Burkhead	46.3	48.1	74.7	76.9
2012	Abdullah	34.1	32.1	52.4	45.8
2013	Abdullah	40.4	52.9	53.4	60.9

So what does this data tell us? Well, first and foremost it says that Nebraska tends to ride one back rather than divide the work up.

Other than 2008, Pelini’s first year, 2010 and 2012 were the only years when the lead back did not have at least 40 percent of all the carries for the team. Both those years saw injuries limit the time of the lead backs (Helu and Burkhead, respectively) so those percentages were more out of necessity than of choice.

Those injuries, of course, will also skew the numbers in terms of percentage of “running back carries” (running plays for the running back, as opposed to quarterback, wide receiver, or other player). That number is somewhat illustrative.

We can throw 2008 out as Pelini’s first year and a transitional period on offense. But even looking at the “injury” years of 2010 and 2012, the percentages are somewhat astounding.

In 2009, the percentage of “running back” carries over total carries was over 18 points higher. That is relevant primarily to take the quarterback runs out of consideration and just look at the work load the lead back got when the ball went to a running back.

In the “injury” years of 2010 and 2012, that difference was relatively stable (about 17 points in 2010 and about 18 points in 2012). 2011, of course, was the “Ride Rex” year where Burkhead had an astonishing 74.7 percent of running back carries—meaning almost three out of every four times a running back carried the ball in 2011, it was Burkhead.

But check the numbers out in 2013.

Abdullah’s percentage of total carries is right in the neighborhood of lead backs in other years for Nebraska. But the percentage of running back carries is only 13 points higher, a significant difference compared to years past.

Some of the difference, of course, comes from the injury to Taylor Martinez and a move away from the quarterback run game. But when we look at the numbers taking the quarterback out of consideration, we see the smallest difference between percentage of total carries and percentage of running back carries since 2008.

This suggests that, at least to a certain extent, Nebraska is incorporating more of its running backs into the offense and not putting such a heavy load on the lead back.

Of course, there are some who would advocate putting more of a work load on Abdullah, who at this point is clearly Nebraska’s most effective offensive weapon. But that’s another discussion. For right now, we can take a look at the numbers and conclude that the workload among running backs at Nebraska is being spread out more than it has been in the past.

All stats are from cfbstats.com.

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