Arizona Football Position Breakdown: The Running Backs
As we continue our series of position breakdowns for the Arizona Football team, here are our thoughts about our 2017 running backs.
The 2016 football season wasn’t kind to running backs on the Arizona Football roster. Hopefully, 2017 is a bit better, and as we head into Spring, we feel the position looks a lot better.
Returning are Nick Wilson, JJ Taylor, and Zach Green, entering are Nathan Tilford and Gary Brightwell.
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From a depth standpoint, five scholarship running backs should go a long way, and assuming that the Wildcats won’t quite have the same attrition and injuries as they did in 2016, this year should be better.
Arizona will enter the spring with four of the five running backs. Tilford enrolled at Arizona early getting the opportunity to get repetitions, develop and learn the playbook just in time for spring.
The position has typically been strong for the Wildcats while under head coach Rich Rodriguez, and 2017 should be more of the same. Call 2016 the anomaly if you will, but barring some apocalyptic outcome to the running back position in 2017, we highly doubt Arizona to have that sort of bad luck moving forward.
Wilson, even despite his durability and injury concerns will most assuredly be the starter heading into the spring. He is the senior-to-be and has proven when healthy, he can easily be one of the best runners in the conference, and possibly even the country.
JJ Taylor was purely electric for the Wildcats last season. As a true freshman, he tantalized fans with his quick spurts and shiftiness in the backfield. It wasn’t until the Washington game when he would suffer from a foot injury that would eventually sideline him for the rest of the season.
At 5-foot-6 and roughly 170-pounds, there are some prevailing concerns that Taylor likely isn’t an every down back, especially in Pac-12, and it probably wouldn’t be best to put a huge workload on him if Wilson were to go down. After last season’s performance, you can bet Rich Rodriguez will use JJ as well as Wilson, but the position will be a battle.
That leaves the highly recruited Tilford who is built a bit more like Wilson, and it makes it all the more important why he is here early. Even with Green showing glimpses of brilliance last year, especially in the ASU game, he hasn’t shown consistency, and since arriving at Arizona, he hasn’t been able to climb the depth chart, he wasn’t able to make himself a viable option as a top replacement.
But you know what they say, it’s not how you start it’s how you end. Green, a redshirt senior, ended on a huge high note, rushing for 126 yards on 14 attempts scoring two touchdowns.
This spring should be huge for the running back position as Arizona can really solidify this position. Having the four running backs here competing, will only help the Wildcats in the long run.
The position is pretty deep, and quite talented as well, but since a lot of Arizona’s 2017 success hinges on the running back position, health and durability are going to be especially important.
Moving forward, we feel confident about our running back squad, and unless something drastic happens, Arizona is in a better position to be successful at running back in 2017.
Spring Training has begun:
Next: Position Breakdowns: Quarterback
At Zona Zealots, we are excited to see the return of football and hope Spring is kind to the Wildcats. Bear Down, Arizona!