Bobodeluxe;842129710 said:

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If the running backs are all injured, we will see many hail Mary passes this season.

:tedford

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Better hailmary than 3rd and long draws out of the gun.

SFCityBear;842129584 said:

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In a Jeff Tedford offense, he would never see the light of day as a running back. With someone who thinks outside the box, like Sonny Dykes, you just might see something different now and then.

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I'm sorry, but I love this new phenomenon of some Cal fans making statements about coaches "like Sonny Dykes", like we have a great idea of who he really is as a coach, which really just amounts to projecting on him the opposite of everything they disliked about Tedford and projecting on him every fan fantasy they've ever had.

Personally, I'm going to project onto Sonny my desire that he not go Tom Holmoe on us and risk injury to the backup quarterback by desperately playing him at a position he has limited aptitude for. I seriously doubt that is the kind of out of the box thinking you are going to get, but if it is, I had enough of it in the late 90's.

Seriously, the guy runs a somewhat wide open offense. I don't know what people saw when he was OC at zona that indicates he throws all the rules to coaching out the window and does everything fans fantasize about that no coach ever does. From some of the comments around here you'd think Dykes runs his team like a 12 year old playing EA Sports.

OaktownBear;842129939 said:

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I'm sorry, but I love this new phenomenon of some Cal fans making statements about coaches "like Sonny Dykes", like we have a great idea of who he really is as a coach, which really just amounts to projecting on him the opposite of everything they disliked about Tedford and projecting on him every fan fantasy they've ever had.

Personally, I'm going to project onto Sonny my desire that he not go Tom Holmoe on us and risk injury to the backup quarterback by desperately playing him at a position he has limited aptitude for. I seriously doubt that is the kind of out of the box thinking you are going to get, but if it is, I had enough of it in the late 90's.

Seriously, the guy runs a somewhat wide open offense. I don't know what people saw when he was OC at zona that indicates he throws all the rules to coaching out the window and does everything fans fantasize about that no coach ever does. From some of the comments around here you'd think Dykes runs his team like a 12 year old playing EA Sports.

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Thanks for all the insults. That is what makes the BI such a fun experience.

First of all, I am praising Hinder's running ability, while you run it down, and denigrate it by saying he has "limited aptitude".

Second, as to coaches throwing "all the rules to coaching out the window" and doing "everything fans fantasize about that no coach ever does", perhaps you did not notice, but Sonny Dykes had quarterback Kyle Boehm practicing a lot at tight end. I've never heard of a coach moving a quarterback to tight end, have you? Sounds like "thinking outside the box" to me. The coach should try to get his best athletes on the fields at all times. Dykes has said that on numerous occasions.

The quarterback is usually the best, or one of the best, athletes on a team, and one capable of playing other skill positions. Quarterbacks on other teams who do not win the first string job sometimes end up playing receiver or running back for their coaches. This has happened on a number of teams over the years.

Hinder is clearly the best runner among the top three quarterbacks. Dykes has already had Hinder practice at the position of running back. Why would Dykes take chance of getting him hurt practicing at running back, if he was not thinking of having Hinder play running back for an occasional play or maybe more? Do you think Dykes was just doing that to suck fans like me into thinking that he might do it in a game, or do was he doing that to mislead the opponents who will follow his open practices? Or was he doing it, because Hinder is such a good athlete, if he doesn't win the starting job, it will be a chance to get a good athlete on the field at times?

The most likely thing to happen, if Hinder doesn't win the starting job, is that he might see the field as a running back on an occasional special formation or "trick play", or maybe run the wildcat. The odds of seeing Hinder at running back a lot would depend on all 4 top running backs being unable to play, and backs like Coprich, other backs, converted DB's, all unable to run the football well enough to satisfy the coaches.

It is amusing to see how much negativity can be generated on here by such an off hand comment, ripping me and running down Hinder's ability. We really need all three quarterbacks, so I am hoping that all our backs recover from their injuries and can play. The defensive backfield is not so deep either, so I would hope that none of them is called upon to play running back either, let alone move Hinder over to do it.

If Hinder was considered too skinny to be a serious QB starter, then there's no way he'll be a RB. As long as we're making stuff up, let's put moala in at RB.

SFCityBear;842129332 said:

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Muhammad is pretty much the only dependable back we have, a back we can count on, and we have no idea how he will perform at the college level, until he actually does it.



:gobears:

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How do you know Muhammad is dependable?

QB's are usually one of the worst athletes on a team, maybe only kickers, snappers, and punters are worse. Of course this trend is quickly changing with the trend towards dual threat QBs.

There is no way Hinder becomes a full time RB. He's 6'3 and the weight of a 5'10 back. If its not bigs and lasco, it's ervin, muhammed, coprich, hodges, gingold... If we ever get to the point, they're going to switch guys to RB (I.e demariay)

barabbas;842130124 said:

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How do you know Muhammad is dependable?

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He's not injured, as far as we know.

concernedparent;842130136 said:

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QB's are usually one of the worst athletes on a team, maybe only kickers, snappers, and punters are worse. Of course this trend is quickly changing with the trend towards dual threat QBs.

There is no way Hinder becomes a full time RB. He's 6'3 and the weight of a 5'10 back. If its not bigs and lasco, it's ervin, muhammed, coprich, hodges, gingold... If we ever get to the point, they're going to switch guys to RB (I.e demariay)

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I disagree with all of it. QB's have often been asked to play other positions, and many have been successful doing just that. You aren't able to do that unless you are a good athlete. On the current roster, Kyle Boehm has been asked to practice plays as a tight end for next season. Also on the current roster is a kid, Jordan Morgan, who was MVP of his high school league as a QB. He was the leading passer, leading rusher, and the leading punter, and played defensive back, going both ways. At Cal, he has been moved to defensive back. Can you tell us how the QB Morgan is not a good athlete?

Where did I say Hinder would "become a full time RB"? Could you please read the damn posts, without putting words in my mouth? I have seen Coprich and Hodges. If we get down to using them, the running game will not be anywhere near what it would be with Bigleow, Lasco, Ervin and Muhammad, and I think you can kiss the season goodbye in that case. If Dykes did not want Hinder to ever see the light f day at RB, then why would he have said that he wanted to see how he looked there, and had him practice some plays at the position? If you adamantly don't ever want to let Hinder run the ball as a running back, then I suggest you take the matter up with Sonny Dykes, not with me.

SFCityBear;842130032 said:

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Thanks for all the insults. That is what makes the BI such a fun experience.

First of all, I am praising Hinder's running ability, while you run it down, and denigrate it by saying he has "limited aptitude".

Second, as to coaches throwing "all the rules to coaching out the window" and doing "everything fans fantasize about that no coach ever does", perhaps you did not notice, but Sonny Dykes had quarterback Kyle Boehm practicing a lot at tight end. I've never heard of a coach moving a quarterback to tight end, have you? Sounds like "thinking outside the box" to me. The coach should try to get his best athletes on the fields at all times. Dykes has said that on numerous occasions.

The quarterback is usually the best, or one of the best, athletes on a team, and one capable of playing other skill positions. Quarterbacks on other teams who do not win the first string job sometimes end up playing receiver or running back for their coaches. This has happened on a number of teams over the years.

Hinder is clearly the best runner among the top three quarterbacks. Dykes has already had Hinder practice at the position of running back. Why would Dykes take chance of getting him hurt practicing at running back, if he was not thinking of having Hinder play running back for an occasional play or maybe more? Do you think Dykes was just doing that to suck fans like me into thinking that he might do it in a game, or do was he doing that to mislead the opponents who will follow his open practices? Or was he doing it, because Hinder is such a good athlete, if he doesn't win the starting job, it will be a chance to get a good athlete on the field at times?

The most likely thing to happen, if Hinder doesn't win the starting job, is that he might see the field as a running back on an occasional special formation or "trick play", or maybe run the wildcat. The odds of seeing Hinder at running back a lot would depend on all 4 top running backs being unable to play, and backs like Coprich, other backs, converted DB's, all unable to run the football well enough to satisfy the coaches.

It is amusing to see how much negativity can be generated on here by such an off hand comment, ripping me and running down Hinder's ability. We really need all three quarterbacks, so I am hoping that all our backs recover from their injuries and can play. The defensive backfield is not so deep either, so I would hope that none of them is called upon to play running back either, let alone move Hinder over to do it.

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1. There have been lots of QB's who were turned into tight ends (when it was clear they weren't going to play QB). They tend to have the right body type and their usual lack of 4.4 speed fits the position. Actually, tight end and safety seem to be the most common positions QB's get switched to. Practicing Boehm at TE is not exactly innovative.

2. Boehm is not in the three deep. If he did get switched, which he has not yet, it might make some sense, just as Levy was switched to fullback. Point being outside the three deep it is unlikely he will play a down.

3. Would I be denigrating Moala if I said he won't play wide receiver? RB is not Hinder's skill set. I'd counter that you are denigrating his play at his actual position by thinking his coach would place such little value in him at QB.

4. Hinder is in the three deep with a true frosh and a redshirt frosh. We need him at QB. It would be mind-blowingly stupid to play him at RB other than possibly some very occasional trick formation, which frankly I don't like the sound of but would be willing to see what the coach put out there. You get him hurt and you have little experience at QB AND you run a significant risk of being forced to blow Goff's redshirt when you don't want to.

5. I think the main reason that Dykes practiced Hinder at RB (as he did other QB's) is that he flat out didn't have enough healthy RB's to practice without exhausting the guys who were out there. There was nobody that cracked the 5 deep last year out there in spring, and nobody likely to crack the three deep. The QB's were bodies that could run the plays when we needed to eat up some reps. I wouldn't read any more into it than that.