Akrum Wadley's running style....remind you of anyone?

Agree with BigTenChamp a lot..........
Hopefully, they are all Healthy for Maryland and the rest of way. If so, here's the depth chart, according to me.

Canzeri/A Wadley (on same line)
DMX
A Daniels

Sorry, but Daniels has never performed, or produced at same level as the other 3 guys, in my humble opinion.

Daniels had 123 yards rushing in his first career start then the next week versus Iowa State he had around 55 yards early in the first half before going down basically for the season. Not a real big sample size.

I do agree he's not as dynamic as Wadley and certainly not as fast as Canzeri but seem to have some potential. For a bigger back he did seem to go down a little too easy on contact though
 
I'd still like to see Wadley with another 10-15 pounds. Daniels was solid before his injury. Look at some of Wisconsins offenses the last few years. 3 can roll with 3 running backs and keep them all fresh. Especially the way Kirk wants to grind down a defense.
 
A bit of a departure from the original question here, but mention of Wisconsin's backs got me thinking about something. How many backs has Iowa had during the KF tenure that have turned into NFL players (at least replacement-level type guys)? As far as I can remember, really just Greene. He has been the only one drafted, and the only one who has actually received significant playing time. And he has basically been a replacement-level guy (a couple of nice seasons gaining just over 1000 yards as a feature back, but nothing spectacular). You could argue that perhaps Jermelle Lewis and Jewel Hampton (maybe Wegher?) also had that talent-level, but were somewhat derailed by injury or other stuff.

Give Iowa a decent back, and their offense hums, there just have not been a lot of great backs coming through. During Ferentz's tenure, Wisconsin has had 5 RBs drafted, including 1 in each of the last 3 drafts. Even with all of the other complaints about Iowa offense, I have to think if RB talent had simply been better, many of those offensive years would have looked much better overall.
 
Willie Fleming of the 1958 Iowa team. Fleming came in about the middle of the season and ran wild to lead Iowa to amazing victories at Wisconsin, at Michigan and at Minnesota to clinch the Rose Bowl. Very similar running styles!
 
Damian Simms is probably the closest hawkeye I could think of but AW is alittle quicker even.

One play that really impressed me was when he had no where to go and a defender was about a foot away from nailing him at the last second he just jumped to the ground sideways and totally avoided contact. That's not only smart but showed amazing reflexes.
 
He remined me that we needs "Fridge" style running back for third and short yard
plays.
william-refrigerator-perry1.jpg
 
A bit of a departure from the original question here, but mention of Wisconsin's backs got me thinking about something. How many backs has Iowa had during the KF tenure that have turned into NFL players (at least replacement-level type guys)? As far as I can remember, really just Greene. He has been the only one drafted, and the only one who has actually received significant playing time. And he has basically been a replacement-level guy (a couple of nice seasons gaining just over 1000 yards as a feature back, but nothing spectacular). You could argue that perhaps Jermelle Lewis and Jewel Hampton (maybe Wegher?) also had that talent-level, but were somewhat derailed by injury or other stuff.

Give Iowa a decent back, and their offense hums, there just have not been a lot of great backs coming through. During Ferentz's tenure, Wisconsin has had 5 RBs drafted, including 1 in each of the last 3 drafts. Even with all of the other complaints about Iowa offense, I have to think if RB talent had simply been better, many of those offensive years would have looked much better overall.

I don't recall if Albert Young was drafted but he played for Vikings for maybe 3 seasons. Ladell Betts was drafted and played several seasons in NFL, but only played for KF 1-2 years IIRC

your point is valid though as Iowa has not had many RBs to NFL especially compared to Wisc
 
I strongly disagree with your strongly disagree..

I've always thought Akrum had by far the most raw potential out of our running backs... but he is slightly built and had a fumble history.

Canzeri has some decent moves but nowhere the quick shift that Wadley has.

Mitchell has some decent speed and straight away power.

Daniels to me has never looked good... not even when healthy (he has a career 3.8 ypc avg). Canzeri is around 5 ypc career and Wadley 6.5

Saying Wadley is better than the others is not the same as saying he's the only one that looks the part. Adrian Peterson and Marshawn Lynch are better than Jamaal Charles. Doesn't mean Charles doesn't look the part as an NFL running back.
 
Wadley's second TD run reminded me of Jermelle Lewis. He isn't Lewis...doesn't have the size or strength, but the lateral move was Jermelle Lewis.
 
Daniels had 123 yards rushing in his first career start then the next week versus Iowa State he had around 55 yards early in the first half before going down basically for the season. Not a real big sample size.

I do agree he's not as dynamic as Wadley and certainly not as fast as Canzeri but seem to have some potential. For a bigger back he did seem to go down a little too easy on contact though

Actually Daniels had 56 yards and it was all in the first quarter.
 
A bit of a departure from the original question here, but mention of Wisconsin's backs got me thinking about something. How many backs has Iowa had during the KF tenure that have turned into NFL players (at least replacement-level type guys)? As far as I can remember, really just Greene. He has been the only one drafted, and the only one who has actually received significant playing time. And he has basically been a replacement-level guy (a couple of nice seasons gaining just over 1000 yards as a feature back, but nothing spectacular). You could argue that perhaps Jermelle Lewis and Jewel Hampton (maybe Wegher?) also had that talent-level, but were somewhat derailed by injury or other stuff.

Give Iowa a decent back, and their offense hums, there just have not been a lot of great backs coming through. During Ferentz's tenure, Wisconsin has had 5 RBs drafted, including 1 in each of the last 3 drafts. Even with all of the other complaints about Iowa offense, I have to think if RB talent had simply been better, many of those offensive years would have looked much better overall.

Actually, Lewis, Hampton and Wegher have all been on active NFL rosters. They just didn't finish their eligibility at Iowa.
 
I was going to say that he reminds me of Barry Sanders, Jerome Bettis and Chris Johnson. Sanders due to his near superhuman moves to make the first guy miss and guys in space look stupid. Bettis due to his hard nosed running style that will get you those hard fought short yards when needed. Johnson due to his near immortal straight line speed when he gets into the second level. He looks better than the kid from LSU, but because he didn't have a bunch of stars and SEC offers next to his name, he will be overlooked by the national media.

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