Illinois Football: Illini Team Grades Through 3 Games

Heading into this season, I think the running back situation was one of the areas that people were most excited about.

Last season we witnessed the emergence of running back Ke’Shawn Vaughn as a true freshman.  He had a solid season rushing for 723 yards and 6 touchdowns in a reserve role.

In 2016 we were expecting to see Vaughn be even more dominant but that hasn’t fully happened yet.

Vaughn has rushed the ball 40 times for 187 yards and 2 touchdowns this season.  He is doing all of that while averaging 4.7 yards per carry.

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The pleasant surprise out of the running backs is Kendrick Foster.  He has rushed the ball 18 times for 175 yards and 2 touchdowns.  He also has a 9.7 YPC average.

But, the running backs haven’t been the needed stability that I thought they would be.  They disappear at times and I don’t know if that is because of their skill set or the coaching staff.

I gave the running backs a grade of a ‘C’ because it was going to be higher but the Western Michigan game was ugly.  As a team Illinois only rushed for 3 yards on 15 carries.

In this game, Vaughn only received 8 carries for 22 yards and Foster only 2 carries for 3 yards.  This has to change moving forward.

Illinois has to be more dedicated to the run and that in turn will open up the passing game.  Lovie Smith is a run first and play great defense type of coach.  He needs to get back to that formula.

The flashes of greatness Vaughn showed against North Carolina can be duplicated.  That first run for a 65-yard touchdown was incredible and I am looking for more of that in the coming weeks.