As any fan of the New England Patriots undoubtedly knows, losing your best offensive weapon is usually not beneficial to your football team.
Tom Brady’s knee injury, nine minutes into week one, has hurt the Pats’ offensive production and caused a general anxiety among their fan base. But, in the Huskies’ case, maybe the loss of Maurice Murray to graduation actually helped.
Before anyone begins to think I need to have my head examined, I know Murray was one of the top three backs to ever play for Northeastern.
His 1,421 yards and 14 touchdowns in 2007 constitute the second best season ever for a Husky back, and as the career leader in rushing yards, attempts and touchdowns it is hard to argue against big Mo. But I would humbly argue that when you have a player as talented as Murray, it is hard to look anywhere else on offense.
Last season, the Husky offense ran 722 plays; 458 of them, or 63.4 percent, were runs. Murray accounted for two thirds of those plays with 302 carries. That is a ton of the offense going through just one guy and it gave the opposing defenses one task: stop Mo, win the game.
This season, though there have only been two games, the team has shown perfect balance – 76 rushes and 76 passes, leading to 129 yards per game (YPG) on the ground and 259 through the air for 388 yards per game on offense.
In last season’s lopsided offense Northeastern did manage to bruise out 166.5 YPG on the ground but was only able to find 156.3 YPG in the air, for 322.8 YPG.
But that’s not all: in addition to gaining 66 more YPG, Anthony Orio and company have kept the ball in their possession and kept the other defenses off the field, winning the battle of time possession in both games.
The subtraction of Murray has actually been an addition to this offense. It has allowed them to open things up more and to be more creative. The days of Mo left, Mo right and Mo up the middle are gone, replaced by three step drops, four wide-out sets and a much more open and dynamic offense.
Though it hasn’t shown on the scoreboard yet, this Husky team is better than it was last year. They played in a hostile environment against a Football Bowl Subdivision opponent in Ball State and managed to score 14 points, then went down to a very hot and very hostile Statesboro Georgia to play a Georgia Southern team ranked 14th in the country and lost on some last second heroics.
Don’t get me wrong, there is still a lot of uphill for the Huskies, starting Saturday in the Carrier Dome against Big East foe Syracuse. But there is reason for some hope, and more importantly some excitement on the offensive side of the ball.
Check out 104.9 FM or at www.wrbbradio.org to hear all the action of your Huskies. The next game’s football coverage is on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. at Syracuse with pregame coverage beginning 30 minutes before kickoff.
– Keith Lavon and Pete Martin can be reached
