The Analysis of Marlon Lucky

Marlon Lucky is far from overrated. Out of the 12 running backs rated in the “Rivals Top 100” for the 2005 recruiting class, Marlon Lucky has accumulated the 4th most yards. That alone should show that he is not overrated and is in fact one of the top running backs from his recruiting class. But further analysis shows that Marlon Lucky is better than he first appears.



Marlon Lucky has overcome a lack of opportunities, poor offensive line play, a change in offensive philosophy, and tough opposition to post the numbers that he has accumulated during his two years at Nebraska. I will discuss each of these factors in the order I have listed them.

1. Lack of Opportunities: Lucky has only 184 rush attempts for the Cornhuskers. To put that into perspective, James Davis, the Clemson running back who has accumulated the most yardage since 2005, had 203 rush attempts last year alone. Jonathon Stewart, who in 2005 was the highest rated running back in the nation, had 183 rush attempts last year for Oregon. The Longhorn, Jamaal Charles, has a combined total from his first two years in college of 275 carries.

There are a couple of reasons why Lucky hasn’t had the amount of touches that the other running backs on this list have had. First of all, the two running backs that he has played behind have both gone onto play in the NFL. Cory Ross, who was the starter during the 2005 season, was a two year starter for Nebraska and a major contributor for three years. Ross is now playing in the NFL for the Baltimore Ravens. The starter for Nebraska at running back for the 2006 season was Brandon Jackson who was a 3rd round pick of the Green Bay Packers during this past draft. Jackson was a tough runner and good blocker and is the favorite to start for the Green Bay Packers this season. That Marlon Lucky was forced to play behind two future NFL running backs was the main reason that he did not get to carry the ball as many times as the other running backs to whom he is being compared.

Another reason that Lucky wasn’t able to get more carries was his deficiency as a pass blocker. In the West Coast offense, a premium is placed on running backs being able to pick up blitzing linebackers and safeties and chipping at defensive ends rushing off of the edge. When Lucky first got to Nebraska he had never been forced to do any of this and he struggled at it. He has improved over the past two years to a point where the coaches seem to be comfortable with having Lucky on the field on an every down basis.

Taking these factors into account and looking at his carry totals, it is apparent that what Marlon Lucky has suffered from is not a combination of over-hype and underproduction, but rather a lack of opportunity.



2. Poor Line Play: The Nebraska offensive line has sucked for the past two years, especially the 2005 season. The terrible offensive line play is illustrated by the awful 2005 team yards per carry average of 2.7 and the 38 sacks given up in 2005 alone. During 2005, Marlon Lucky averaged only 3 yards per carry, which nobody could argue was good. However, 3 yards per carry doesn’t look quite as bad when the starter and future Baltimore Raven Cory Ross averaged only 3.9 yards per carry.

On the other hand, Jamaal Charles was fortunate to play behind a 2005 offensive line at Texas that had an average Rivals star ranking of 3.9. The 3.9 average star ranking was the highest Offensive Line ranking that any of the 2005 running backs ran behind. That offensive line allowed Charles to average 7.4 yards per carry and the rest of the Longhorn team to average 5.7 yards per carry. 5.7 yards per carry is a huge number for a team and it allowed the Longhorns to finish second in the nation in rushing yards per game during 2005 behind the one-dimensional rushing attack of Navy.



3. Change in Offensive Philosophy: Bill Callahan took over the Nebraska Cornhuskers before the 2004 season and immediately began to change the entire culture of Nebraska football. Gone were the days of the Power-I formation and the marathon drives that took 10 minutes to move the ball 70 yards toward the opposing team’s end zone. Those days were replaced by Callahan’s West Coast offense that led the Raiders to an appearance in the Super Bowl during the 2002 season. The transition was rough and Marlon Lucky was a part of that transition.

Unlike Marlon Lucky, the rest of the running backs who were rated in the top 100 players in the nation by Rivals.com did not have to be part of a restructuring process. Those running backs were fortunate to join football teams that had been running the same system with many of the same coaches for an extended period of time.

The benefit for players like Jamaal Charles, Jonathon Stewart and James Davis who joined Mack Brown’s, Mike Bellotti’s, and Tommy Bowden’s respective teams was that each of those coaches had been coaching at their school for at least eight years. This allowed the coaches to have a system in place that almost ran itself. The returning players in these programs knew what was expected of them and they were able to pass this knowledge along to the incoming freshmen. This process of handing down knowledge and expectations made the transition from high school phenom to college freshmen easier for those freshmen running backs not named Marlon Lucky.

Another benefit of joining a program with an established head coach and offensive system was the level of sophistication that that system was able to achieve. Whereas Bill Callahan was working to introduce his entire team to the foreign West Coast Offense, coaches like Mack Brown, Mike Bellotti and Tommy Bowden were able to fine-tune their respective offensive systems. And in college football, where parity has reigned supreme over the past decade, small, marginal gains in efficiency and knowledge are instrumental to developing an offensive system that will work effectively over the course of the season. Those small and marginal gains were tough to achieve for the Nebraska program who was trying to implement an entirely new system, and this negatively affected the first two years of Marlon Lucky’s career.

4. Tough Opposition: This section is not meant to start an argument about which conference is the best college football conference in the land. I am just analyzing the competition that each of the running backs has faced during their two years in college football. Because we are talking about running backs, the measure of the quality of the defense faced that I will use is Rushing Yards Against.

In the following chart, I have placed each of the running backs that I am comparing along with the average quality of rush defense they faced during the 2005 and 2006 seasons. The fourth column is the average quality of rush defense they have faced over their entire collegiate careers.



As you can see, the quality of rush defense that Marlon Lucky has faced is equaled only by Jonathon Stewart. On the flipside, James Davis, who at first glance seems to be the best running back from the 2005 recruiting class because of the amount of yards he has gained during his career, has benefited from playing against lackluster defenses who struggle to stop the run. Combine that and the fact that he has the most carries of any of the five top running backs and you can see why he has the most yards of any of the top running backs as ranked by Rivals.com.

After taking into account all of the factors that I have discussed, it should be apparent that Marlon Lucky is far from overrated. The reasons his numbers aren’t as eye-popping as some of the other big name backs from the 2005 recruiting class have been detailed. He has been forced to deal with poor line play in front of him, a lack of running opportunities, a change in offensive philosophy and tough opposing defenses and through all of this he has still managed to accumulate the fourth highest yardage total of any of the running backs whom we have discussed.

Looking forward to the 2007 season, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about Lucky’s chances for a breakout year. First of all, Lucky is entering fall camp as the number one running back on the depth chart for the first time in his career. Secondly, the Nebraska offensive line is returning some veteran talent while infusing some new and young talent at the same time. Reports and observations from spring practice had the Husker O-Line showing great gains in both the overall talent level and the group cohesiveness from the previous two years. Thirdly, Lucky showed marked and tangible improvement between his freshmen and sophomore campaigns. His yards per carry increased from 3 his freshmen year to 5.2 his sophomore year. While expecting another jump of 2.2 yards per carry is unrealistic, it is fair to believe that the average will increase again this year with his added experience and a better O-Line blocking for him. Also, now that he is almost assuredly going to be the starting running back, his touches will increase and that will significantly increase the number of yards he rushes for this year.

In conclusion, those who say Marlon Lucky is overrated and a disappointment should at least wait until the end of this year to make that statement. This is his best chance for the type of season that was expected of him coming out of North Hollywood High School in Los Angeles, and there are plenty of reasons to expect that this will be the year when lives up to the lofty expectation that have been placed upon his shoulders.