I found it hard to pick this week’s PTW. There are so many places I could have looked and been happy with whoever I chose. But at the same time, I didn’t want to just go with Kellen Moore and call it a day. We all know that Moore is going to play well because he always does. I thought a lot about it and decided to stay on Moore’s side of the ball and go with running back DJ Harper.
A handsome fellow, if I do say so myself!
I looked through the stats for Oregon State in their first two games of the season and the one thing that stood out to me was their rushing defense. Against TCU, the Beavers gave up 278 yards on the ground. Against Louisville they allowed 165. TCU has a couple of good running backs, but Louisville, not so much. Even with defensive lineman Stephen Paea clogging up the middle, teams have been able to get their run on against Oregon State. I couldn’t pick Doug Martin for the same reason that I couldn’t go with Kellen Moore. Besides, as deep and as talented as Boise State is with that position, they should have no problem keeping fresh legs in the game as the OSU defense gets tired. It seems to me that Martin will wear them down with his punishing style of running, and the Harper will crash through without mercy and outrun everybody to the end zone. It will look something like this:
Harper is from Cypress, Texas and was a standout all star at Cypress Creek High School. Despite being only a two-star recruit, he had scholarship offers from Boise State, Arkansas, Houston, Tulsa, UTEP, Texas Tech, and Colorado State. We are glad he chose the Broncos! He has done nothing but rack up the yardage since playing as a freshman. Unfortunately, an ACL tear last year in the third game of the season against Fresno State sidelined Harper for the rest of the season. The good news is that he got a medical red shirt for that year and will be with us for one season beyond what we thought!
It’s interesting that at the beginning of the season, no one was sure how DJ Harper was going to do. He had just gotten back from his ACL tear to participate in practices a few weeks before the trip to D.C. Sure, the media (The Idaho Statesman) had told us that he was looking good in fall camp, but you can’t be sure until he is seen in live game action. Also, by the time we got the depth chart for the first game, Doug Martin was the starter while Harper and Avery were slated as co-backups. As mentioned, this was possibly due to the questions about how a repairing ACL tear would do in live action. Well how does 4 carries for 80 yards and a touchdown against Virginia Tech sound? When he broke that tackle just past the defensive lineman and sprinted 71 yards into the end zone, I knew immediately that he was fine. The rest of the nation knew as well. He followed that up with 11 carries for 59 yards and a touchdown against Wyoming, and that was only 3 quarters of work as Harper and the rest of the starters sat for the 4th. It seems that the coaches are allowing him to get back into things slowly, increasing his workload more and more each game. He is ripe for a larger number of carries and subsequently some long runs against the Oregon State Beavers. Doug Martin will wear them down with his physicality and then Harper will be long gone down the sideline before they realize what happened. Call it Boise State's version of "Smash and Dash." It should be fun.
I know this is a different OSU team than the one that came into Bronco Stadium in 2006, but I can’t help but picture Ian Johnson gashing the Beavers for huge gains and touchdowns over and over again without dreaming of DJ Harper doing the same thing on Saturday. So keep your eyes on number 6, DJ Harper. He will look a lot like this guy:
But actually he will look like this:
Check back in for the weekend recap on Monday. We should have a lot to discuss! GO BRONCOS!
No comments:
Post a Comment