The Houdini Career of Armando Allen &The Demise of the Once Vaunted Power Running Attack

A couple months back, Jeremy posted his (excellent) Class of '07 Recruiting Review exploring how effective that heralded class has actually been in terms of production and impact. One thing stood out to me that I'm finally getting around to expounding on: Armando Allen's underwhelming career to date.

Of course, Charlie deserves some (a heaping? the lion's share?) of the blame here. For all his blather about bringing back a smash-mouth, run your opponent into the ground offense, it never materialized. Not even close. Charlie was married to his aerial assault like a stubborn cuckold. Not to mention the team played from behind enough that many 2nd half running scripts were discarded like lost trifecta tickets. Also, Charlie's inability to develop a dependable and cohesive offensive line to create any semblance of a surge thwarted the team's rushing efforts, particularly around the goal line.

Maybe Armando is a victim of circumstance, a RB in the wrong place at the wrong time.

These facts we know. Allen came in as a much-ballyhoed recruit and has worked as the 1 or 1A back for three seasons. His versatility as a pass-catching back (102 receptions for 695 yards) is his greatest asset as it adds a dimension that defenses have to account and plan for every snap. He's carried the ball 362 times, good for 16th all-time in school history, for a total of 1,630 rushing yards (4.5 yards/carry) and 6 TD's.

Here's where I'm compelled to take Armando to task. He's been given ample opportunity to make a difference, and fallen short. His totals reflect an aversion for the big play (an anemic career long run of 26 yards...that's unfathomably lame. If only he could line up against the Irish D...) and an allergy for the end zone. It bears repeating - in 3 years, Allen has 6 rushing touchdowns. Prescribe the kid some penicillin or something.

To see how Allen's body of work stacks up against his RB predecessors, I compiled the following table in terms of career rushing attempts:

	Player	Attempts	Yards	Yds / Carry	TD’s
1.	A. Pinkett	889	4,131	4.6	49
2.	A. Denson	854	4,318	5.0	43
3.	D. Walker	693	3,249	4.6	17
4.	Ferguson	673	3,472	5.2	32
5.	J. Jones	634	3,018	4.8	26
6.	J. Heavens	590	2,682	4.5	15
7.	R. Grant	570	2,220	3.9	18
8.	P. Carter	557	2,409	4.3	14
9.	N. Worden	476	2,039	4.3	29
10.	T. Brooks	423	2,274	5.4	12
11.	R. Kinder	404	2,295	5.7	18
12.	T. Fisher	384	1,849	4.8	15
12.	T. Rice	384	1,921	4.9	23
14.	M. Green	382	1,977	5.2	15
15.	G. Gipp	369	2,341	6.3	21
16.	A. Allen	362	1,630	4.5	6
16.	E. Sitko	362	2,226	6.1	26
18.	L. Becton	347	2,029	5.8	12
19.	J. Bettis	337	1,912	5.7	27
20.	Schwartz	335	1,945	5.8	17
21.	J. Crowley	294	1,841	6.3	15
22.	D. Miller	283	1,933	6.8	17

After you've had fun comparing these legendary names, Allen's numbers stand out like a priest at a Justin Bieber concert. In case you didn't crunch them, he ranks dead last on this list for yards and touchdowns, and tied for 18th on yards per carry. The closest RB in yardage, Jim Crowley, shared the workload with three other "Horsemen," while the closest in TD's, Tony Brooks, split carries with three other guys on the list, among others, and still doubled Allen's output.

I would love to see Armando have a Julius Jones circa '03 redemption year and prove his doubters wrong. I just don't see it happening. Maybe Brian Kelly's spread offense puts Allen in different positions on the field to attack a defense - and break a, dare I say, 30 yard gallop. Hopefully Kelly instills a greater learning curve in his big uglies to push the pile around the goal line. Punching it in from short is ever the more reliable source of points, an assertive "Eff you, we're scoring and you can't stop us." In contrast, Charlie couldn't resist his gimmicky touch passes and timing routes, trying to one-up his coaching counterpart with needless chicanery.

Which brings me to my next point - Notre Dame's power running attack, or lack thereof. Everyone knows the buzzword in college playbooks is "Spread Offense." But that doesn't necessarily mean an over-reliance on throwing the football. The best teams still dominate by establishing the run and dictating the flow of the game. They score just as many, if not more, touchdowns on the ground than through the air. Charlie missed the memo on the critical importance of finding success through the team's ability to rush for touchdowns.

Building on the exploration into Armando's end zone deficiency, I diagnosed one large symptom of failure - team rushing TDs. To be sure, there's an exhaustive list of reasons for the abject failure of '07-'09 (3-9, 7-6, 6-6 respectively), but this litmus test looked compelling. In those three forgetful seasons, Charlie racked up whopping team totals of 11, 11 and 13 TDs for each season. Those didn't look good. I wanted a bigger sample size to compare with.

Despite the bountiful wonders of the Internet, it was damn near impossible to find team statistics going back much further than 1995 - about the time Al Gore tied a ribbon on his world wide web invention. Thankfully, my parents didn't throw away my football yearbook collection dating back to 1991. (Note: If I'm in the dark on a one-stop reference for ND and college statistics, please clue this hombre in).

With 19 years worth of data, I tested my hypothesis: how much does a team's rushing TD total affect their ability to win games?

Year	Team Rushing TDs	# of Players with 6+ TDs	Season Record
1991	37	2	10-3
1992	35	2	10-1-1
1993	36	3	11-1
1994	18	0	6-5-1
1995	32	3	9-3
1996	34	3	8-3
1997	22	1	7-6
1998	22	1	9-3
1999	25	1	5-7
2000	24	2	9-3
2001	16	1	5-6
2002	15	1	10-3
2003	13	1	5-7
2004	17	1	6-6
2005	21	2	9-3
2006	14	1	10-3
2007	11	0	3-9
2008	11	0	7-6
2009	13	0	6-6

As plain as day, there seems to be a distinct correlation (my Stats professor would be disappointed I didn't try a full regression plot to test correlation in this instance, but I hated that class).

Seasons (5) with 32-37 team rushing TDs: 48-11-1 (.800 winning pct.)
Seasons (5) with 21-25 team rushing TDs: 39-22 (.639)
Seasons (4) with 15-18 team rushing TDs: 27-20-1 (.563)
Seasons (5) with 11-14 team rushing TDs: 31-31 (.500)

Looks like a pretty straight forward formula - (1) move ball on offense (2) run ball into end zone (3) repeat ad nauseum (4) watch wins pile up. Apparently, the correlation is more direct if you share the wealth.

Seasons (7) with 2 or more players with 6+ TDs: 66-17-1 (.786)
Seasons (8) with 1 player with 6+ TDs: 57-41 (.582)
Seasons (4) with 0 players with 6+ TDs: 22-26-1 (.449)

Quite the irony that Charlie "Decided Schematic Advantage" Weis presided over 4 of the 5 worst team totals and 3 of 4 goose eggs in terms of finding a consistent end zone threat(s) out of the backfield.

Wondering how Coach Kelly's spread offense conforms to this rushing study? His three seasons at Cincy provide this snapshot:

2007 (10-3) - 20 team rushing TDs, 1 player with 6+ TDs
2008 (12-2) - 15 team rushing TDs, 1 player with 6+ TDs
2009 (12-1) - 23 team rushing TDs, 1 player with 6+ TDs

It's safe to say Coach Kelly values the importance of establishing the run much more than Weis. Whatever intangible mental edge it gives the team certainly translated into wins for the Bearcats. With an eager stable of veteran backs, Kelly should have no trouble building on this philosophy. Robert Hughes should see the bulk of red zone carries and become well-adjusted to celebrating within the diagonal lines. Armando and Jonas Gray will split gamebreaker duties and should both score their share of TDs. Factor in Crist's mobility and a more conservative playbook in Year 1 geared to running and I'd expect no less than 20 team rushing TDs. If the O-line gels and that number surges into the 30's, expect a BCS trip.