| Seventh in a series of articles previewing the top NFL prospects, by
position, for the 2000 draft. Ron Dayne won the Heisman Trophy and set a new
NCAA rushing mark. However, if you ask pro scouts who their top-rated back is, the vote
would be pretty evenly divided between the "Great Dayne" and Virginia’s Thomas
Jones.
Jones has only slightly above-average size and good but not great speed by NFL
standards, but everything else about him is very positive. At a school like Virginia,
Jones was able to graduate in three years. Almost all of his teammates and coaches speak
highly of him.
Jones has not missed a game or even a practice in almost four full years in the
program, and he is probably the most complete back in the country. Jones has very good
hands and can also be used to return kickoffs and punts. He is built low to the ground
with a low center of gravity. Jones possesses tremendous balance and body control, very
quick feet, excellent run vision, the ability to consistently make the first tackler miss
and a burst of speed. He has quick acceleration into and through the holes, as well as the
agility to make hard, sharp, decisive cuts and nifty moves.
Jones runs hard and tries to finish his runs, but he is not the type of power runner
who moves the pile backward very often. He can get outside and break the long run, but he
will also get caught from behind at times. Unlike many college tailbacks, Jones is a
willing blocker who will pick up the blitz — and not just as a cut blocker. He also
seems to do a good job of protecting the ball. In many ways, he is lot like the
Cowboys’ Emmitt Smith when Smith came out of Florida. Smith had greater strength
after contact and even better pure running skills, while Jones is a little faster. As a
senior, Jones rushed for 1,798 yards.
At 253 pounds, Dayne is a big one-back or tailback but not a fullback. Unlike most
king-sized power backs, he does not recklessly smash into the line to try to make his own
hole. Instead, he is a patient runner who will take the ball, wait for his blockers and
then set them up. So, if you penetrate and hit him early, he’s not that tough to
bring down because he has no momentum. However, once he puts it into gear, he is the
toughest power back in the college game.
Dayne has tremendous power in his lower body and great leg drive. He also has very
quick feet and the agility to elude tacklers and make the first man miss. He will gain
yardage after contact and has had games in which he carried the ball 40 or more times.
Since he has limited exposure in the passing game and has been the featured back in the
I-formation almost his entire career, scouts are not sure they can accurately gauge how
well he runs out of various formations, how well he catches passes and how well he picks
up the type of blocking (and blitz pickup) he will need at the next level. Dayne could
have erased almost all the doubts and questions if he had gone to the Senior Bowl, but out
of loyalty to his head coach, Barry Alvarez, Dayne went to the Hula Bowl, where Alvarez
was coaching.
A lot of scouts view Alabama’s Shaun Alexander as a soft back who
doesn’t like to run hard inside and will fumble. He has shown great improvement in
both of those areas, but Walter Payton he ain’t.
Alexander is a very skillful 215- to 220-pound runner with excellent vision and run
skills. He is much more quick than fast and gets caught from behind at times. He has
excellent short-area quickness and burst and consistently makes tacklers miss. His
strength and balance have gotten better. Alexander is also doing a little better job
protecting the ball, but he will still fumble. He was often used as a downfield receiver,
which is somewhat unusual for most backs. Although he drops a few, he can also make some
exceptional grabs. As a blocker, Alexander no longer is a non-factor and has become decent
when it comes to picking up the blitz. He also seems to be a good goal-line runner.
Arizona State’s J.R. Redmond is an exceptional athlete and a very good
all-purpose back who can run, catch, return and even play in the secondary on defense. He
has very good speed, and although he does not look that elusive and is more of a
slash-and-change-of-pace runner than a jitterbug, it seems as though he rarely gets hit
cleanly. Injuries and other factors have set Redmond back, but he still finished 12th in
the nation in all-purpose yardage as a sophomore, was All-Pac-10 as a runner and returner
in 1998 and was named his team’s Offensive MVP in ’97 and ’98. He was also
suspended for the 1999 Oregon game as a result of a bizarre incident involving the NCAA
extra-benefits rule, his marriage to a part-time employee of the athletic department, his
use of her cellular phone before they were married and now their impending divorce. Yet he
still rushed for more than 1,000 yards for the time in his career, was the Pac-10
first-team all-purpose back and second-team All-Pac-10 running back. Then he went to the
Senior Bowl and erased more than a few questions about how hard he would run inside.
Miami of Ohio’s Travis Prentice is a big, strong, durable back with good
speed to the corner and a very solid work ethic. He has been highly productive and almost
never fumbles the ball. Prentice has very good feet in the hole and has worked hard on his
pass catching, but he just does not seem to have those really special traits that separate
excellent backs from great backs. At times he will make a move and make defenders miss,
but at other times he does not look very shifty, nifty or elusive in the open field. While
he runs hard and will generally work to finish his runs, he is not a great tackle breaker
or after-contact runner. Prentice generally will block and can catch, but he does not
stand out in either area, and he will miss some blitz pickups. Most of his catches were
made on short passes when he was facing the quarterback.
Three of the most interesting and difficult-to-rate backs are Arizona’s Trung
Canidate, Oregon’s Reuben Droughns and Kansas State’s Frank Murphy.
Canidate is a big-play runner who breaks an inordinate number of long runs. From 1996
to ’98, Canidate averaged 51.7 yards on his 15 rushing touchdowns. He also rushed for
1,220 yards in ’98, averaging just over seven yards per carry. As a senior, he rushed
for 1,602 yards and 11 touchdowns on just 253 carries, in addition to catching 30 passes.
Canidate has breakaway speed, but he is not that elusive for a smaller back and is not a
great make-you-miss guy. He needs to improve his pass catching and blocking, and his lack
of durability is a concern. While he has a great knack for breaking long runs, he also has
a lot of runs that gain no yardage.
Droughns was off to an All-America start in ’98 after coming to Oregon from Merced
(Calif.) College. He rushed for 824 yards and nine touchdowns on just 112 carries in five
games before breaking his fibula and damaging ankle ligaments. He did not look as
explosive in ‘99 and missed time with rib and cartilage problems suffered in the USC
game. Droughns has quick acceleration through the hole, good speed and some shake. He runs
taller than coaches would like, however, and does not string multiple moves together. His
durability is a concern, and he has had a problem with fumbles. He doesn’t run with a
lot of power at times. On occasion, it appears as though he lacks creativity and
make-you-miss ability.
Murphy has a very checkered past, and he has started only a couple of games because of
fumbles and an ankle injury. Nevertheless, he is known as a worker, looks like "Mr.
Universe" from the waist up and has great stopwatch speed and good hands. Murphy
almost looks like a tough, sandlot runner with his reckless, upright style and at times
does not seem to be running under control. While scouts like backs who will sell out,
Murphy must learn to show more patience so his blockers can do their jobs. He also needs
to run lower so he is not so exposed to the type of big hits that cause fumbles.
The best pure fullback in the draft is North Carolina’s Deon Dyer, who is a
physical but straight-line type of runner and blocker. While he runs only in the 4.9s in
the 40-yard dash, he plays a lot quicker than that, has good run vision and can catch the
ball fairly well.
Texas Tech’s Sammy Morris is a RB/one-back/FB type with very good
pass-catching skills and much better running than blocking ability. When he moved back to
tailback early in the ’99 season after the other Ricky Williams was hurt, he had a
monster game, gaining 170 yards and leading Tech to an upset win over Texas A&M. In
that game Morris looked a lot like former Tech and New York Giants RB Billy Taylor.
Michigan’s Aaron Shea has excellent size and can be a fullback, tight end
or H-back, but he needs to improve his blocking. He has good hands and some run skills,
and he really showed well at the Senior Bowl, where his blocking also picked up.
Following the lead of Ricky Williams and Ron Dayne, many of the top junior backs stayed
in school for their senior years. However, Tennessee’s Jamal Lewis and
Virginia Tech’s Shyrone Stith did opt to enter the draft.
Lewis looked like the second coming as a freshman. He suffered a major knee injury in
1998 and came back last year, but in part due to new injuries and in part because of his
old injury, he was not the same back. However, he is a big, strong, powerful, speedy back
who can catch the ball and make the big play. The biggest knock on him in 1999 was that he
did not show much patience or do a very good job of using his blockers.
Stith is a quick, strong, explosive, bowling-ball type of back who runs very hard and
breaks tackles. However, he is very short and does not appear to catch the ball that well.
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