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Back in the days of Jeff Quinn the overuse of one back became something of a running joke among the Bull Run editors. Brandon Oliver benefited from that overuse by putting in more than 150 attempts than the next leading UB rusher, James Starks.
Jeff Quinn Football '15
Jeff Quinn Football '15
Quinn had some other backs who could have given Oliver a breather but opted not to. BO held up load and may owe his NFL career to Quinn's decision to run him 25-30 times a game.
Who would have thought UB would have went so far in the other direction with their next coach.
We went from a coach who ran his feature back 25-30 times a game, or more, to a coach who only ran his feature back more than 20 times on three occasions. It's no wonder that those are the only three times Johnson topped 100 yards and on the other nine games this year, when he was run under 20 times, he was held below the century mark.
| Grouping | Carries | Yards | AVG |
|---|---|---|---|
| All Games | 200 | 1040 | 5.20 |
| U20 Games | 124 | 544 | 4.39 |
| U20 Minus 2 Worst | 107 | 514 | 4.80 |
Johnson finished his career at UB ranked 6th all time in yards with 2,212 yards. His average yards per carry, 4.96, is second among Buffalo's all time top ten yardage gainers to only the great Willie Evans.
The two UB backs who recently went on to the NFL are both behind BO by nearly a half a yard.
And BO's good numbers were not just padded by his single game record against Akron.
When you take out Olivers three best games (Akron, Albany, and Miami) and his two worst (Boston College and Army) he is averaging 4.8 yards per carry. It's not unreasonable to think if he had 20 carries a game he could have hit 1,300 or more yards and really improved his draft stock.
Around the Bull Run water cooler we all seem to think that if Johnson can put up a good 40 at UB's pro day that he may get an UDFA look, like Oliver did.
This past season the highlight game for Johnson was definitely Akron. Johnson broke O.D. Underwood's single game record when he carried the ball 24 times for 284 yards.
Buffalo Bulls defeat the Akron Zips 41-20 - Bull Run
It was on the next drive that Johnson broke UB's all time single game running record. Johnson took the ball on the 39 cut back to the right and, partially sprung by a Tyree Jackson block, took the ball into the end zone.