JMU’s total running game hasn’t been nearly as good as last year and part of that is Bryan Schor although I think the bigger factor is an O-line that doesn’t match up to last year’s O-line. I hope we saw an advance look of the playoffs with his performance against Elon. He went for 70+ yards and was a true threat on the read option.
I get trying to protect him from hits especially after his injury last year, but the playoffs are here and it is time to win or go home. With Stony Brook’s excellent run D, he will need to make them respect his ability to keep if the RB’s are to get any running room between the tackles.

This year Schor is only getting 2.7 yards per carry when you factor in lost sack yards.
Last year he was at 4.5 yards per carry. Big difference.
Houston hinted in his press conference today that JMU has not emptied their bag on offense this year. Will we see more Schor keepers now that it is crunch time?

Absolutely.

I think the injury last year put the kibosh on him running too much during the year. My guess is that they had a conversation with Schor and the out come was that he would play in the pocket unless needed, then in the playoffs the leash would be off.

As much as I think the O-line has been a mixed bag, some of that does come from our lack of read option throughout the year. We ran read option plays, but they were really just hand-offs that looked like a read option. With Schor as a legit threat on the ground wait for looks where they spy the QB and he heaves it and/or look for him to run on broken plays more often.

To DukeDogNation’s point, the base offense they’ve been running just isn’t built for many big runs. Someone who’s been watching more game film than I have feel free to confirm or refute, but I don’t think the O-line has been tasked with many pulls or traps, especially in that base read option. I’d expect to see more of that as needed commensurate with game score and/or level of competition.

Plus, no one really has the ability to make those shifty cuts that make tacklers miss like Abdullah could. He really was exceptional at that.

(11-28-2017 11:09 PM)olddawg Wrote:  Plus, no one really has the ability to make those shifty cuts that make tacklers miss like Abdullah could. He really was exceptional at that.

Yet, Schor is coming off a game where he ran for 3 TD's.

(11-29-2017 07:01 AM)Wear Purple Wrote:  Yet, Schor is coming off a game where he ran for 3 TD's.

Early in the year he seemed a bit slower to me. Making me wonder if he was chinked up a bit, or bulked up more and lost some speed. Then came the Elon game and he looked a lot quicker than in previous games. He seemed more like vintage 2016 in the Elon game. Regardless I am feeling that the O is peaking it up going into the Playoffs.

(11-29-2017 08:17 AM)jmuroadwarrior Wrote:  

(11-29-2017 07:01 AM)Wear Purple Wrote:  Yet, Schor is coming off a game where he ran for 3 TD's.

Early in the year he seemed a bit slower to me. Making me wonder if he was chinked up a bit, or bulked up more and lost some speed. Then came the Elon game and he looked a lot quicker than in previous games. He seemed more like vintage 2016 in the Elon game. Regardless I am feeling that the O is peaking it up going into the Playoffs.

I agree on all points. Your opinions are even better than your desserts!

(11-29-2017 08:17 AM)jmuroadwarrior Wrote:  

(11-29-2017 07:01 AM)Wear Purple Wrote:  Yet, Schor is coming off a game where he ran for 3 TD's.

Early in the year he seemed a bit slower to me. Making me wonder if he was chinked up a bit, or bulked up more and lost some speed. Then came the Elon game and he looked a lot quicker than in previous games. He seemed more like vintage 2016 in the Elon game. Regardless I am feeling that the O is peaking it up going into the Playoffs.

Yep. His best run still may be the late one against the Ticks that moved the chains, allowed us to eat a little more clock, and then set up Sharp's TD run. It was 3rd and 4 with 1:18 left in the game and though the box score p-b-p log shows it "only" as a 5-yd run, it was one of the best and most timely runs he's had (IMO). I know I'm not alone when I say I wouldn't trade him for anybody. Lauletta, Briscoe and the others can win awards for tossing the ball all over the place. Not taking anything away from them, but I'll take Bryan Schor all day every day. Some dude on this board kept claiming during the season that Schor is playing/throwing scared. What a joke. This guy is clutch.

Apologies for being a little off track from the thread subject regarding Schor's running, but side notes...

...from this week's game notes:

-Schor needs 9 completions to take over 1st in school history (he'll get that)

-Schor needs 371 yards passing to take over 1st in school history (he might need 1 more game to get that, but he will)

He of course already owns the passing TD's record. He will also move into at least 2nd place for Total Offense this Saturday with just 72 yards needed. He needs 457 yards of total offense to take over that school record as well (he should get that in December). Showing he does it with his legs as well as his arms/brains, he also could move into the top 10 in school history for rushing TD's some time this December. Not bad for a QB.

If we go on and win another national title (as I expect we will), one day his jersey number 17 will have to be in consideration for retirement.

(11-29-2017 08:54 AM)Wear Purple Wrote:  

(11-29-2017 08:17 AM)jmuroadwarrior Wrote:  

(11-29-2017 07:01 AM)Wear Purple Wrote:  Yet, Schor is coming off a game where he ran for 3 TD's.

Early in the year he seemed a bit slower to me. Making me wonder if he was chinked up a bit, or bulked up more and lost some speed. Then came the Elon game and he looked a lot quicker than in previous games. He seemed more like vintage 2016 in the Elon game. Regardless I am feeling that the O is peaking it up going into the Playoffs.

Yep. His best run still may be the late one against the Ticks that moved the chains, allowed us to eat a little more clock, and then set up Sharp's TD run. It was 3rd and 4 with 1:18 left in the game and though the box score p-b-p log shows it "only" as a 5-yd run, it was one of the best and most timely runs he's had (IMO). I know I'm not alone when I say I wouldn't trade him for anybody. Lauletta, Briscoe and the others can win awards for tossing the ball all over the place. Not taking anything away from them, but I'll take Bryan Schor all day every day. Some dude on this board kept claiming during the season that Schor is playing/throwing scared. What a joke. This guy is clutch.

He should've been stopped for a 1 or 2 yard gain at best but powered through and got the first down. He won the game with that carry.

(11-28-2017 10:51 PM)bjk3047 Wrote:  To DukeDogNation’s point, the base offense they’ve been running just isn’t built for many big runs. Someone who’s been watching more game film than I have feel free to confirm or refute, but I don’t think the O-line has been tasked with many pulls or traps, especially in that base read option. I’d expect to see more of that as needed commensurate with game score and/or level of competition.

I mentioned in another thread that I watched the NDSU semi the other night, and I immediately noticed how much we were pulling Bolden on runs to the right (he even got called for a penalty on one of them) and how many more traps we ran pulling the RG to the left. I've seen very little of that this year.

I *think* that's by design - to holster it with 30 point leads. I certainly hope that's the case, and that we'll break it out against unsuspecting defenses when the game is on the line.

I've been a "we've been running a limited playbook" truther all year long. Bryan was finally given the freedom to keep against Elon so that we'd put that on the books for SBU to have to worry about defending. That will open up the interior running game at the beginning of the contest and then when they lock back down Bryan will keep it for a big gain on the outside.

Am I still the only one seeing this?

(11-28-2017 10:03 PM)Hart Foundation Wrote:  JMU’s total running game hasn’t been nearly as good as last year and part of that is Bryan Schor although I think the bigger factor is an O-line that doesn’t match up to last year’s O-line. I hope we saw an advance look of the playoffs with his performance against Elon.

Kirkpatrick mentioned on the last podcast that they had hoped to run Schor less this year, but also made it sound like they will let him loose more in a win-or-go-home situation. But you're correct, the OL is certainly not what we had last year. It's no knock on this year's group, but last year's OL was absolutely incredible. I still don't think enough credit goes to them. Abdullah was a nice player, but he was running through holes so big you could drive a truck through them.

(11-29-2017 10:02 AM)DirtyDukes Wrote:  I've been a "we've been running a limited playbook" truther all year long. Bryan was finally given the freedom to keep against Elon so that we'd put that on the books for SBU to have to worry about defending. That will open up the interior running game at the beginning of the contest and then when they lock back down Bryan will keep it for a big gain on the outside.

Am I still the only one seeing this?

I tend to agree and Houston said as much yesterday. The only time all season that I saw some of the more complex blocking schemes that we ran lasts year was the last drive against Richmond. I expect to see more of that starting this weekend.

Let's also not underestimate the effects of losing our starting RB (entering the season). If we had this guy...



...we likely will have seen a lot more home runs hit this season (ala how he shredded EZU...though, it was one of the worst defenses we saw all year).

I agree that the offensive gameplan that we saw against Elon was more indicative of how he'll play the RO going forward. Now that that game is on film, SBU now has to account for him keeping the ball, which means they won't crash the DE's as much, theoretically opening up more A/B gap running lanes and then allowing for big runs when they do over commit. I also wouldn't be opposed to seeing Percy a bit more in this game, he seems to be able to break big runs and can see him being used as a recieving threat on wheel routes like Khalid was in the playoffs last year.

(11-29-2017 10:02 AM)DirtyDukes Wrote:  I've been a "we've been running a limited playbook" truther all year long. Bryan was finally given the freedom to keep against Elon so that we'd put that on the books for SBU to have to worry about defending. That will open up the interior running game at the beginning of the contest and then when they lock back down Bryan will keep it for a big gain on the outside.

Am I still the only one seeing this?

At the very at least, I would think it has to at least keep an additional defensive end or linebacker honest where other teams may have been telling their guys to crash the inside until you get beat. I hope you and several others echoing the same sentiment are right!

Schor running also opens up the passing option in the RPO more as well. As far as the DE's crashing in this is right on. I was at the UD game and they just kept pinching in and Schor refused to run the ball even when he could have had 10+ yard gains. It was like we can beat these guys without you running so don't. Myself and some other JMU fans around me were extremely frustrated as we could see that the QB run was wide open and was not being used.

In looking at the stats he did rush 10 times, but my recollection is many of those were runs off of broken pass plays.