Reggie Bush on Rashaad Penny

The Breh

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I know he clowned the Hawks the day of drafting him but quickly changed his tune the following day saying it was his favorite pick of the first day.
I've learned not to judge picks anymore until I learn something about the player first. We always have players in our minds who we'd like to see get drafted and when we get a name we've rarely heard if at all and it's easy to bitch and moan sayin we messed up. A lot of folks first reaction on multiple boards thought we got too "cute".
I will continue tho, to bitch and moan for not picking Budda Baker and seeing a division rival of all teams scoop him up. Considering what we did in the draft prior to his picking :34853_doh:
Maybe Reggie will learn from quick assumptions about a player he's ill informed on given his complete 180 in record fashion.
 

CamanoIslandJQ

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Why did the National media ignore Penny's stats before the draft? IF, I were an NFL scout and was tasked with valuation of a RB class, I'd START with the leading NCAA rusher and work my way down the list. SDST isn't a powerhouse team, but I'd point out the New Orleans selection of Davenport came at the cost of two 1-st round picks, Texas-SA is an even lesser powerhouse than SDST and Davenport is very much more of a developmental player (without top NCAA stats). Nobody seems to be bashing N.O. much for their "REACH", but they should be. Penny was simply given the "Rodney Dangerfield" treatment due to a perceived "level of competition" tag from media idiots that didn't even watch his tape?
That is what I'd call a very poor evaluation effort by some extremely lazy & incompetent scouts & media "experts".
:smilingalien:
 

hawknation2018

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Rushing defense stats for Rashaad Penny's opponents in 2017:

UC Davis - FCS team, ranked 109th in rushing yards allowed per game (out of 123 FCS teams)
Arizona State - 96th in rushing yards allowed per carry, 78th in rushing yards allowed per game
Stanford - 80th in per carry, 68th in per game
Air Force - 130th in per carry (dead last in FBS), 118th in per game
Northern Illinois - 5th in per carry, 16th in per game
UNLV - 120th in per carry, 123rd in per game
Boise State - 15th in per carry, 17th in per game
Fresno State - 17th in per carry, 11th in per game
Hawai'i - 113th in per carry, 111th in per game
San Jose State - 118th in per carry, 129th in per game (2nd worst in FBS)
Nevada - 74th in per carry, 110th in per game
New Mexico - 85th in per carry, 65th in per game
Army - 116th in per carry, 75th in per game

Penny faced just three good teams against the run: Northern Illinois, Boise State, and Fresno State. Stanford had a down year against the run and were ranked in the bottom half of the Pac-12 in run defense categories.

So how did Penny perform against these three teams? It's a mixed bag.
Northern Illinois - 25 carries for 107 yards (4.3 YPC), 0 TDs
Boise State - 21 carries for 53 yards (2.5 YPC), 1 TD
Fresno State - 15 carries for 69 yards (4.6 YPC), 0 TDs
Combined - 61 carries for 229 yards (3.7 YPC), 1 TD

Penny benefited more from his offensive line than any RB except for Bo Scarbrough. Part of that was San Diego having a very good run blocking offensive line, and part of that was the competition he faced.

This doesn't mean Penny can't be GREAT. It's just one reason I'm hesitant about crowning him until I see how he performs against solid NFL run defenses.
 

chris98251

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A hole is a hole, doesn't matter what your team ranking is, can you hit it and can you accelerate to gain yards. Penny's biggest challenge will be the speed of the NFL game and angles players will take to cut him off. All he has to do is run like someone wants to take his wallet once he gets thru the hole. He has the kind of speed needed, just will need to get used to everyone else having speed also. That and a refusal to go down at first contact.
 

Recon_Hawk

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hawknation2018":1ij4ga5o said:
Penny benefited more from his offensive line than any RB except for Bo Scarbrough. Part of that was San Diego having a very good run blocking offensive line, and part of that was the competition he faced.

Every SDS fan I've head talk about Penny and their Oline has said it was Penny who made the offensive line look good, not the other way around.

SDSU’s offensive line had four new starters going into 2017 which included two redshirt freshman, a sophomore, a junior, and one senior. They were very young and very inexperienced.

Those games that Penny didn't have his usualy 150+ yard running games, his Oline got CRUSHED. Go rewatch the Boise State game and tell me that the offensive was doing their job.

This isn't even considering that the SDS QB was junk, so defense only had one priority. Stop Penny.
 

Spin Doctor

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chris98251":em9ke581 said:
A hole is a hole, doesn't matter what your team ranking is, can you hit it and can you accelerate to gain yards. Penny's biggest challenge will be the speed of the NFL game and angles players will take to cut him off. All he has to do is run like someone wants to take his wallet once he gets thru the hole. He has the kind of speed needed, just will need to get used to everyone else having speed also. That and a refusal to go down at first contact.
Penny has really good vision, and his is pretty good at setting up his blocks. He kind of reminds me a bit of Shaun Alexander in that way. He is patient, and he is deceptive in everything he does. He doesn't look elusive, but people have a hard time getting both hands around him. He makes subtle, little moves that are hard to catch, sort of like Shaun Alexander did. Players think they are getting the right angle, and all of the sudden they are grasping at air. He also has a wicked cutback, and a nice second gear that comes on without many noticing.

With the right line he has the ability to be a 2000 yards type of guy. He is a guy that elevates his line, but on the same hand I think he is the type of RB that suffers behind bad lines more than most. He doesn't look overly powerful, he had that stat yards after first contact, but I went back and watched most of his games. Usually it was players getting one hand on him because he forced them to take an awkward angle. He went down with arm tackles really easily, too easily in my opinion. This is going to be his biggest hurdle he needs to jump over in the pros. As a RB you need to be able to break those tackles. As you said, I think he is going to find that guys are going to get their hands on him more in the NFL.

I think a bit of lower body work, and lowering his pad level will do a lot in this area.
 

hawknation2018

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Recon_Hawk":s4yjfl43 said:
hawknation2018":s4yjfl43 said:
Penny benefited more from his offensive line than any RB except for Bo Scarbrough. Part of that was San Diego having a very good run blocking offensive line, and part of that was the competition he faced.

Every SDS fan I've head talk about Penny and their Oline has said it was Penny who made the offensive line look good, not the other way around.

SDSU’s offensive line had four new starters going into 2017 which included two redshirt freshman, a sophomore, a junior, and one senior. They were very young and very inexperienced.

Those games that Penny didn't have his usualy 150+ yard running games, his Oline got CRUSHED. Go rewatch the Boise State game and tell me that the offensive was doing their job.

This isn't even considering that the SDS QB was junk, so defense only had one priority. Stop Penny.

SDSU's offensive line averaged the second most YARDS BLOCKED PER SNAP in the country. They were really bad in pass protection, which the why the *mod edit* would consider them a "bad offensive line," giving Penny all the credit.

This video touches on what I'm talking about:
[youtube]WWkE0a2LAKk[/youtube]
 

TwistedHusky

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I get the competition he played against was not world beating.

And when he played better defenses he did not do as well, but it somewhat disregards the reality that the rest of his team was essentially overmatched against the better defensive teams.

We don't know if those worse #s are the impact of his team being overmatched or him not being able to dominate better players in those games.

What I DO know is that in the Senior Bowl, when playing against some of the better players in CFB but when also armed with a better support group....he did what he wanted against them. So the idea he simply cannot do well against better players is at least shown to be likely incorrect.

And I have noticed that guys that dominate in Senior Bowls tend to do well in the NFL. Not always, but enough to be comfortable that we should get good results.

I will be very surprised if Penny does not turn into a very good player. Very happy with this pick.
 

Russ Willstrong

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Hard to believe SDSU O line was that dominant when you watch the Boise State game.
BTW does anyone credit the O line for Penny's return yards also?

Sam's account that he is often barely touched based off those few plays from his highlight reel is insane.
Penny runs through arm tackles as he should. He does truck guys and drags a linebacker five yards but will go down easily at times because he is human. He knows when to save his body and has remained healthy.
I'm not a Penny follower but I'm excited for this team. I think this kid is as talented as Percy Harvin was but without the headcase and media hype. Love it.
 

Sgt. Largent

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CamanoIslandJQ":30sv09jo said:
Why did the National media ignore Penny's stats before the draft? IF, I were an NFL scout and was tasked with valuation of a RB class, I'd START with the leading NCAA rusher and work my way down the list. SDST isn't a powerhouse team, but I'd point out the New Orleans selection of Davenport came at the cost of two 1-st round picks, Texas-SA is an even lesser powerhouse than SDST and Davenport is very much more of a developmental player (without top NCAA stats). Nobody seems to be bashing N.O. much for their "REACH", but they should be. Penny was simply given the "Rodney Dangerfield" treatment due to a perceived "level of competition" tag from media idiots that didn't even watch his tape?
That is what I'd call a very poor evaluation effort by some extremely lazy & incompetent scouts & media "experts".
:smilingalien:

The national media ignored Penny because he played in the Mountain West with zero national game exposure.

But from us and multiple other teams interested in Penny for their first round pick, there's no doubt teams and scouts weren't sleeping on him.

Any RB in this era of football where RB's have been diminished due to pass heavy offenses selected in the first round tells you that no one was sleeping on him, even if most of us hadn't hear much, or anything about Penny prior to the draft.
 

Spin Doctor

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Russ Willstrong":1y12xy1h said:
Hard to believe SDSU O line was that dominant when you watch the Boise State game.
BTW does anyone credit the O line for Penny's return yards also?

Sam's account that he is often barely touched based off those few plays from his highlight reel is insane.
Penny runs through arm tackles as he should. He does truck guys and drags a linebacker five yards but will go down easily at times because he is human. He knows when to save his body and has remained healthy.
I'm not a Penny follower but I'm excited for this team. I think this kid is as talented as Percy Harvin was but without the headcase and media hype. Love it.
Not really seeing it. I've watched a lot of videos, and tape on Penny. He uses angles, and a deceptive acceleration. People never really able to square up on him. It is as if they are surprised by how fast he is able to take off. The thing about Penny is he doesn't look very fast.... That is until you see DB's falling behind him, even then he still looks like he is not going fast, but he is. A lot of pundits were actually surprised at his 40. That same deceptive speed is what really confuses defenders that are looking to square up on him, it's the same thing Alexander did, as well as Arian Foster. He is hard to square up on, and I think he will be like that too in the NFL. That being said, when defenders were able to square up on him he went down disturbingly easily. This will happen more in the NFL. It wasn't due to his lack of effort either, he simply doesn't look to have much bulk in the lower body. That can be fixed with conditioning. The other thing is an upright running style, he doesn't get much leverage on defenders. That also can be fixed with coaching.

As for the Percy Harvin comparison, not even close -- two different skill sets. He is more of an Arian Foster sort of player, only faster.
 

Spin Doctor

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Sgt. Largent":3pkfciw0 said:
CamanoIslandJQ":3pkfciw0 said:
Why did the National media ignore Penny's stats before the draft? IF, I were an NFL scout and was tasked with valuation of a RB class, I'd START with the leading NCAA rusher and work my way down the list. SDST isn't a powerhouse team, but I'd point out the New Orleans selection of Davenport came at the cost of two 1-st round picks, Texas-SA is an even lesser powerhouse than SDST and Davenport is very much more of a developmental player (without top NCAA stats). Nobody seems to be bashing N.O. much for their "REACH", but they should be. Penny was simply given the "Rodney Dangerfield" treatment due to a perceived "level of competition" tag from media idiots that didn't even watch his tape?
That is what I'd call a very poor evaluation effort by some extremely lazy & incompetent scouts & media "experts".
:smilingalien:

The national media ignored Penny because he played in the Mountain West with zero national game exposure.

But from us and multiple other teams interested in Penny for their first round pick, there's no doubt teams and scouts weren't sleeping on him.

Any RB in this era of football where RB's have been diminished due to pass heavy offenses selected in the first round tells you that no one was sleeping on him, even if most of us hadn't hear much, or anything about Penny prior to the draft.
Penny had been silently rising up the boards the other running backs had injury concerns, or whatever Guices situation was/is. I've been hearing murmurs about him being involved in an incident that could embarrass the league. Penny had a strong Combine and Senior Bowl which really shot him up the boards. I think at the NCAA's season end people had him as a third rounder. He came out, and really blew away everyone's expectations during the Senior Bowl, and Combine. He tested way higher in both of these events than people thought he would.
 

Sox-n-Hawks

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Spin Doctor":g8a5h54t said:
Russ Willstrong":g8a5h54t said:
Hard to believe SDSU O line was that dominant when you watch the Boise State game.
BTW does anyone credit the O line for Penny's return yards also?

Sam's account that he is often barely touched based off those few plays from his highlight reel is insane.
Penny runs through arm tackles as he should. He does truck guys and drags a linebacker five yards but will go down easily at times because he is human. He knows when to save his body and has remained healthy.
I'm not a Penny follower but I'm excited for this team. I think this kid is as talented as Percy Harvin was but without the headcase and media hype. Love it.
Not really seeing it. I've watched a lot of videos, and tape on Penny. He uses angles, and a deceptive acceleration. People never really able to square up on him. It is as if they are surprised by how fast he is able to take off. The thing about Penny is he doesn't look very fast.... That is until you see DB's falling behind him, even then he still looks like he is not going fast, but he is. A lot of pundits were actually surprised at his 40. That same deceptive speed is what really confuses defenders that are looking to square up on him, it's the same thing Alexander did, as well as Arian Foster. He is hard to square up on, and I think he will be like that too in the NFL. That being said, when defenders were able to square up on him he went down disturbingly easily. This will happen more in the NFL. It wasn't due to his lack of effort either, he simply doesn't look to have much bulk in the lower body. That can be fixed with conditioning. The other thing is an upright running style, he doesn't get much leverage on defenders. That also can be fixed with coaching.

As for the Percy Harvin comparison, not even close -- two different skill sets. He is more of an Arian Foster sort of player, only faster.

If you want a fair comparison. Look at the running style in both of these videos.

Both 220lbs, Rashaad is a couple of inches shorter. The STYLE is very similar. We won't know what he'll look like against a pro defense, until he's against a pro defense.

[youtube]mGwx-ZmCGi8[/youtube]
[youtube]ahW9j75oIlU[/youtube]
 

Russ Willstrong

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Spin Doctor":1tt1uhsb said:
Russ Willstrong":1tt1uhsb said:
Hard to believe SDSU O line was that dominant when you watch the Boise State game.
BTW does anyone credit the O line for Penny's return yards also?

Sam's account that he is often barely touched based off those few plays from his highlight reel is insane.
Penny runs through arm tackles as he should. He does truck guys and drags a linebacker five yards but will go down easily at times because he is human. He knows when to save his body and has remained healthy.
I'm not a Penny follower but I'm excited for this team. I think this kid is as talented as Percy Harvin was but without the headcase and media hype. Love it.
...
As for the Percy Harvin comparison, not even close -- two different skill sets. He is more of an Arian Foster sort of player, only faster.
Please enlighten me about their differences.
I admit I dont know much about Penny but he does have a similar upright running style to Harvin in college. It appears he can catch and is a phenomenal returner too.
I understand Harvin is a receiver in the NFL but In college Harvin often lined up in the backfield. He wasn't a true receiver and it appeared he never mastered the route tree. Both are great returners and appears to be home-run hitters.
 

Spin Doctor

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Russ Willstrong":3tuo6zur said:
Spin Doctor":3tuo6zur said:
Russ Willstrong":3tuo6zur said:
Hard to believe SDSU O line was that dominant when you watch the Boise State game.
BTW does anyone credit the O line for Penny's return yards also?

Sam's account that he is often barely touched based off those few plays from his highlight reel is insane.
Penny runs through arm tackles as he should. He does truck guys and drags a linebacker five yards but will go down easily at times because he is human. He knows when to save his body and has remained healthy.
I'm not a Penny follower but I'm excited for this team. I think this kid is as talented as Percy Harvin was but without the headcase and media hype. Love it.
...
As for the Percy Harvin comparison, not even close -- two different skill sets. He is more of an Arian Foster sort of player, only faster.
Please enlighten me about their differences.
I admit I dont know much about Penny but he does have a similar upright running style to Harvin in college. It appears he can catch and is a phenomenal returner too.
I understand Harvin is a receiver in the NFL but In college Harvin often lined up in the backfield. He wasn't a true receiver and it appeared he never mastered the route tree. Both are great returners and appears to be home-run hitters.
They don't even have similar running styles, Harvin was used as a slasher type of player. He spent a good half of his time out at wide receiver, even at Flordia. Harvin was viewed as more of a WR prospect than a RB prospect, and he spent most of his time lined out wide in the NFL. When Harvin did run he looked to bounce it outside, and attack from the edges. Penny is a north and south runner, he can bounce it to the outside, but generally he likes to go up the gut if he can. He is also a very patient runner, something that Harvin never showcased in college. Penny is also has about 20 pounds on Harvin, and has a bigger frame than him as well.

In college Harvin was a much better route runner than Penny. Route running is something that Penny actually struggles with -- but Penny has something you can't really coach, great hands. Harvin did most of his work in college on things like the slant routes, or bubble screens -- but he was till far ahead of Penny in this regard. The TL;DR version of this is they both had completely different skill sets and approaches to this game.
 

Recon_Hawk

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hawknation2018":n7phl55z said:
Recon_Hawk":n7phl55z said:
hawknation2018":n7phl55z said:
Penny benefited more from his offensive line than any RB except for Bo Scarbrough. Part of that was San Diego having a very good run blocking offensive line, and part of that was the competition he faced.

Every SDS fan I've head talk about Penny and their Oline has said it was Penny who made the offensive line look good, not the other way around.

SDSU’s offensive line had four new starters going into 2017 which included two redshirt freshman, a sophomore, a junior, and one senior. They were very young and very inexperienced.

Those games that Penny didn't have his usualy 150+ yard running games, his Oline got CRUSHED. Go rewatch the Boise State game and tell me that the offensive was doing their job.

This isn't even considering that the SDS QB was junk, so defense only had one priority. Stop Penny.

SDSU's offensive line averaged the second most YARDS BLOCKED PER SNAP in the country. They were really bad in pass protection, which the why the *mod edit* would consider them a "bad offensive line," giving Penny all the credit.

This video touches on what I'm talking about:
[youtube]WWkE0a2LAKk[/youtube]

We can't isolate the effectiveness of an oline from its running back using a stat that's is directly tied to the running back.


Common sense is the best approach here. Is it more likely the success of the running game was because of a young, inexperienced offensive line or was it the first round draft pick that teams across the league were hoping to draft early?
 

fenderbender123

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When he retires, Rashaad Penny will be considered the greatest running back in the history of the NFL. That's why I gave the pick a grade of A-
 
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