Who runs the ball in the SEC West & who does not

[ShotgunDawg]

With the Jonathan Williams injury news today, I wanted to sit down and see just how big of a problem this is for Arkansas & if our perception of who runs the ball in the SEC is true.

Here is what I got:

Plays PPG R ATT R ATT/G Rush%
ARK 916 70.46 557 42.85 60.81%
MSU 1001 77.04 578 44.46 57.74%
AUB 939 72.23 607 46.69 64.64%
LSU 897 69.00 621 47.77 69.23%
BAMA 1018 72.71 567 40.50 55.70%
TAMU 935 71.92 421 32.38 45.03%
OM 904 69.54 476 36.62 52.65%

- LSU runs the ball ALL THE TIME... Almost at a 70% rate. Of course, this is because they can't throw it, and also because they usually have 3 good backs

- MSU averages the most plays per game by a pretty wide margin at 77 & the next closest being Bama at 72.7

- Surprisingly, Alabama didn't run the all that much, compared to the perception. Only 55.7% of the time. Only A&M & Ole Miss ran less. Will they run more this year? The loss of Sims & Cooper may have been a bigger deal than we thought.

- Auburn ran it a lot in 2014, at a 64% rate. I expect this to fall by close to 10% this season.

- Arkansas ran the ball at a 60% rate, which is the 3rd most in the SEC, but unlike Auburn & like LSU, Arkansas doesn't use their QB in the run game. Therefore, without Williams, Arkansas will have to make up for about 30% of their offense. The candidates to replace Williams are JR Kody Walker, who was a 3 star, 85 rated RB out of high school that ran for 149 yards last year, walk-on, white boy Conner McPherson, & 89 composite rated, 247 3 star, true freshmen Rawleigh Williams. Needless to say, losing Williams is a major problem, particularly because they have a game manager at QB that you really can't ask to pass all that much more often.

[ShotgunDawg]

To add to this, I find Ole Miss as a little bit of a conundrum. I've always felt that teams had one heartbeat & you were either a physical team or you were not, but Ole Miss is different.

For example: Texas A&M is a finesse, throwing team that is non-physical & can't tackle on defense. LSU runs the ball & plays physical on defense. Hal Mumme threw the ball all over the place, but his teams couldn't tackle on defense.

Anyway, you get the point. I find it weird & wonder if it's sustainable when a team has such drastically different personalities on each side of the ball. Ole Miss is a finesse offense that lacks physicality, but plays with as much physicality as anyone of defense. Not saying anything is wrong with this, but it is slightly different than what we are used to seeing from teams with physical, dominating defense.