Akeem Shavers could join small 1,000-yard running back club at Purdue
By CLIFF BRUNT
ISL Editor
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue’s Akeem Shavers says he could run for more than 1,000 yards this year.
At most schools, that would just be typical talk. Most usually have a back who can reasonably expect to get close.
This, however, is Purdue, the Cradle of Quarterbacks. The Boilermakers have had a total of eight 1,000-yard rushing seasons in their history by a total of six players, and just two since Mike Alstott set the school record with 1,436 yards in 1995.
The list is so short that I can add each season to a short paragraph as a history lesson for my freshman readers. They came from Alstott in 1994 and 1995, Otis Armstrong in 1970 and 1972, Kory Sheets in 2008, Joey Harris in 2002, Leroy Keyes in 1968 and Scott Dierking in 1976.
That’s it. Therefore, Shavers’ expectations are a big deal in the greater context of Purdue football.
Purdue coach Danny Hope praised the senior captain, and doesn’t mind the fact that he’s talking about the yardage mark.
He’s fast, very fast, Hope said. He’s a physical runner. Right now, he’s our go-to guy in the running game. He can carry the load for us. I like his goals. We do a good job here, I think, of spreading the rock around, and he still got a significant amount of touches last year and did very well. He could be the backbone to our running game in a lot of ways.
There are many reasons Shavers might have a chance to approach Alstott’s single-season record, or at least get within shouting distance. Shavers is coming off a good season, Ralph Bolden is recovering from a torn ACL, Purdue is more likely to be protecting leads than in past seasons, the team lacks depth at the position and bowl games count toward season yardage. Shavers showed he could be a workhorse with 22 carries for 149 yards in Purdue’s win over Western Michigan in the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl.
Perhaps the most significant reason he could approach records is Danny Hope’s commitment to the ground game.
In Joe Tiller’s run as coach, the Boilermakers ran the ball more than they passed just twice: in 2002 and 2003, with Kyle Orton as the quarterback. Last season, Purdue ran 535 times and passed just 391.
The number of rushing attempts was the most by a Purdue team since 1978, and the past two seasons under Hope are the only two since 1997 in which the Boilermakers fewer than 400 passes.
When asked if Purdue’s three healthy returning quarterbacks would change the team’s offensive focus this year, Hope said it was unlikely.
If we have to throw it every down, we will; if we have to run it every down, we will, he said. If I had my druthers, we’d be balanced. That’s the best thing for us as a football team, and that’s the hardest for a team to defend.
Which of the three experienced quarterbacks emerges as the starter will play a role, too.
The starter heading into the season is Caleb TerBush. Last season, TerBush was an emerging player who had missed the previous season and was pressed into duty because Rob Henry was injured and Robert Marve recovered slowly from his knee injury. TerBush never threw more than 33 passes in a game last season and has a career high of 220 yards. If he is the starter, Purdue is most likely to remain a run-first team.
Hope said Henry, the third-stringer, has improved as a thrower, but the fact remains that he is more an athlete than a passer. Henry has never thrown more than 31 passes in a game. Even in his best game, when he passed for 251 yards and three touchdowns against Indiana at the end of the 2010 season, he completed just 16 of 30 throws. Improved or not, it wouldn’t seem likely that Purdue would return to the gunslinging days of old under him.
Marve is an entirely different case. In his very first game at Purdue in 2010, he launched 42 passes against Notre Dame. He followed that with 34 against Western Illinois. That means he threw more passes in both of his first two games at Purdue than either TerBush or Henry have ever attempted in a game. If Marve takes the reins, and he very well could, Purdue looks more like the team from the Tiller era and Shavers might not get his mark.
Either way, the point is that Purdue has a back that could do it and expects to.
