Jewel headed to...

homerHAWKeye777 said:
You're being a bit too harsh there.

We'll never know what Hamptom was capable of doing.

What we DO know is that he was already rushing pretty well at the beginning of the season this past year ... and that was even with over a year of rust that he needed to "shake off."

Also, Hampton saw FAR MORE than just "mop up" duty. You apparently do not recall that Greene's conditioning wasn't all that great early in the '08 season. As a result, Ferentz and Co would put Hampton in pretty EARLY in games in order to ensure that Greene would be able to play through the 4th quarter.

Thus, Hampton saw QUALITY rushes against FRESH defenses ... and still managed to pull off pretty respectable production. A particularly impressive feature of Hampton's running was that he had a great nose for finding the endzone. Also, despite being quite a bit smaller than Greene ... he ran A LOT bigger than his given size. He benefitted a lot from getting mentored by Greene and he learned to not run too tentatively.

Of course, could it be said that there were undue expectations heaped upon Hampton? Sure there were. However, I also trust the Iowa coaches ... and they had him slated to start after Greene departed. The implication is that they really liked what he brought to the table. Then, after he returned from his injury ... he was seeing plenty of reps and definitely had the capability of winning the starting job from ARob. Did that happen? No it didn't ... and that was because he got reinjured before it could.

The term "overhyped" has a lot more to do with "unmet expectations" when the player actually has had the opportunities to meet expectations but still fails to do so. That certainly WAS NOT the case with Hampton.

Anyhow, I feel for UNI ... because Hampton is good ... really good.
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I hope Hampton finishes his football career strong and has success at Southern Illinois, but there's no denying that he was over hyped and I'm it certainly wasn't his fault.

As for rushes against fresh quality defenses, I think this is part of the selective memory that a lot of fans have. Against Maine, FIU, Indiana and Minnesota he had 51 carries for 286 yards. Against all our other opponents he had 28 carries for 123 yards. Facts are facts, he put up most of his numbers against bad defenses in mop up duty.
 
IMO opinion you can't be "over hyped" if you fail to live up to the hype because of serious injury. Maybe the hype was accurate, maybe not, we'll never know.
 
DexterMorgan said:
Gotcha, so his he going to be ready to play this year? He tore his knee up on Sept 18. Can't see him being ready for start the year.
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I don't see why not, assuming he's on schedule. The typical full recovery from an ACL repair is less than 6 months. I'm sure he'll be doing no-contact workouts throughout the spring.
 
HawkeyeMike23 said:
I hope Hampton finishes his football career strong and has success at Southern Illinois, but there's no denying that he was over hyped and I'm it certainly wasn't his fault.

As for rushes against fresh quality defenses, I think this is part of the selective memory that a lot of fans have. Against Maine, FIU, Indiana and Minnesota he had 51 carries for 286 yards. Against all our other opponents he had 28 carries for 123 yards. Facts are facts, he put up most of his numbers against bad defenses in mop up duty.
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Why undermine his efforts against South Carolina? He received 12 carries there ... and had decent production. And, South Carolina had a top 10 ranked D that year too!

Also, you have to recall that Hampton was a ROLE player.

Would you have expected him to get rushes over Greene? Is it not ridiculous to suggest that he should have? Not surprisingly then ... the Iowa coaches let Greene be the workhorse through much of the season.l

However, that is NOT to say that Hampton didn't see quality reps ... even if he didn't see a ton of carries. For example, against Northwestern (a game that you conveniently left out), Hampton made some quality runs for us ... runs that helped spell Greene ... and then also a quality run or two AFTER Greene got knocked out of the game! He didn't get a ton of carries in that game ... but they were still BIG runs! Big enough for Ferentz to remark about them after the game.
 
I should clarify that when I say "typical" I mean for a college athlete who has access to a training staff.
 
homerHAWKeye777 said:
Why undermine his efforts against South Carolina? He received 12 carries there ... and had decent production. And, South Carolina had a top 10 ranked D that year too!

Also, you have to recall that Hampton was a ROLE player.

Would you have expected him to get rushes over Greene? Is it not ridiculous to suggest that he should have? Not surprisingly then ... the Iowa coaches let Greene be the workhorse through much of the season.l

However, that is NOT to say that Hampton didn't see quality reps ... even if he didn't see a ton of carries. For example, against Northwestern (a game that you conveniently left out), Hampton made some quality runs for us ... runs that helped spell Greene ... and then also a quality run or two AFTER Greene got knocked out of the game! He didn't get a ton of carries in that game ... but they were still BIG runs! Big enough for Ferentz to remark about them after the game.
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I didn't leave it out. It's included in the all other opponents category. All 5 carries and 11 yards he had in that game are in there. I did forget the bowl game though, and he had a solid game there 12 for 54. But I guess we just have different definitions of big runs. But even with the bowl game, running for 177 yards on 40 carries against opponents with a pulse does not equate to the hype he got.

The best thing that ever to his Iowa career was blowing out his knee two years ago. It allowed people to build him up into some super, All-American type RB.
 
HawkeyeMike23 said:
I didn't leave it out. It's included in the all other opponents category. All 5 carries and 11 yards he had in that game are in there. I did forget the bowl game though, and he had a solid game there 12 for 54. But I guess we just have different definitions of big runs. But even with the bowl game, running for 177 yards on 40 carries against opponents with a pulse does not equate to the hype he got.

The best thing that ever to his Iowa career was blowing out his knee two years ago. It allowed people to build him up into some super, All-American type RB.
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And he very well could have become that kind of player. Greene's numbers as a freshman weren't any better, and I think he turned out okay. Greene barely averaged more ypc (4.7 to 4.3), but he picked up 161 of his 174 yards against Ball State and UNI (hardly units with a pulse).

Hampton showed speed, vision, and power as a freshman. He had the tools to succeed at a high level. We never got to see it come to fruition, but there was reason to believe he could be that kind of back (sitting behind Greene in 2008 was hardly an indictment on Hampton's talent level).
 
I wish he would have stayed but knee injuries don't go away and I think he would have been on the bench more then in the game.
 
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