Viks have, up to now, had to play things relatively conservatively. If you consider that Nigel & Company can recruit (and keep recruiting) quality players, then there will soon be a stock of quality RBs pushing each other as a group and for playing time individually. In such expectation, it makes sense to play and develop a true freshman into a half-season of game experience, especially if he is able to put 100 on TCU and your fine senior RB is recuperating.
I'm not a fan of slo-o-o-o-o-w development. I watched with utter despair as we kept playing "duck-the-playoffs" under Tim Walsh for nearly a decade-and-a-half while Boise State brought in Oregon's Dirk Koetter and catapulted their program to be more like Oregon's. During that same period, our program remained stagnant while bsc rivals developed more and more and more.
The Jerry Glanville experiment, I feel, set a foundation for development. In spite of not making progress in the W-column, I believe Jerry & Mouse set the table for the program and Nigel & Company. We warehoused Tim Walsh way too long. But at last now the program has an optimistic outlook for catalytic development.
Oregon's program when it was developing had the "right stuff." Boise State tapped into it and developed their own brand of it. IMO, Boise State's program is much more positive than Oregon's. Even Brent Musberger commented (and a few other announcers have agreed) how Oregon's programs has "streaks of negativity" in it. That is their bane and that is why they can be outdone. Note Cliff Harris. Fantastic player but problematic when not in uniform.
