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The Case and Blue Print for an H-BACK

+9 HS
cmillertime247's picture
January 5, 2023 at 3:15pm
30 Comments

So let me preface these next few sentences by saying that maybe we all (including myself) don't really know how great Xavier Johnson truly is. But with that being said, I think we have seen the need and success that an H-Back style player can bring to Ryan Day's offense. We haven't heard of an H-BACK since Urban sailed off into the sunset but without being directly titled as such, Xavier Johnson has been filling in that role. We've seen glimpses of him stepping in throughout the season in this type of role including the Michigan game, and in the short glimpses we got, I don't remember ever seeing the offense struggle to move the ball. That leads us to the Georgia game. I am not sure why Day decided to start moving him into the backfield in the second half but after that first drive with him in the game, I started screaming "leave him in there". We moved the ball without a lot of resistance from Georgia's defense for the simple fact that they didn’t have an answer for Johnson. He did a great job of running in space and obviously we saw what kind of matchup nightmare he was coming out of the backfield catching balls. My only question is, why can't we replicate this for next year and have someone ready to step into this role? Someone who is truly a run/pass threat and can keep the defense on their toes and be used in high tempo situations for this offense. And I am in no way saying we should abandon the true RB position because I think that is still a huge part of the success of this offense. All I am saying is instead of giving playing time and snaps to 3 different true RBs each game, maybe we look to more of a change of pace type player like XJ and give this offense an extra step that has obviously showed can be successful. 

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