Grisly Fan said:
In addition to the awesome special teams play, I think finding a way to stuff the run, especially on first down, really put SEMO where they didn’t want to be, which is passing the ball. ...
When the opponent has a running back who tops 100 yards, you assume that they must have run the ball okay, at least. And 122 yards on 30 carries, 4.1 yards per carry for Geno Hess … seems not bad. But dig a little deeper and you find out just how well the Griz run defense did.
For perspective, keep in mind that Hess is a stud: Over 4,000 yards rushing for his career (he’s a senior) with 53 touchdowns. This year, he had 1,691 yards, with a
7.1 average yards per carry. Last week, he put up 317 yards, and 198 the week before that. Despite being FCS-(small school), he is the #55 running back on a typical NFL draft board.
Hess built those stats with a lot of carries, punctuated by some major breakaways (often 70 or 80 yards). Against the Griz, Hess had just three carries over 10 yards (10, 11, 19). Take those out of his total and you get 82 yards on 27 carries … for an average of just a hair over 3 yards per carry. No wonder the SEMo quarterback ended up attempting 49 passes (versus 39 rushes)!