Texas Tech football: The all-time Red Raider NFL offense

RBs: Donny Anderson, Sammy Morris, Bam Morris

The trio of running backs that Texas Tech could lean on would be solid but not spectacular.  But in the case of two of them, they might prove to be a better fit in the modern era of the game than they were when the played.

That begins with Donny Anderson.  Nicknamed the “Golden Palomino”, he was ahead of his time as a dual-purpose back.  Playing nine years for Green Bay and St. Louis, the member of the College Football Hall of Fame was never a player that his team just fed the ball to on the ground but rather, he was a do-it-all threat who was just as likely to catch a pass out of the backfield as he was to run between the tackles.

In the 60s and 70s, that made him a bit of a square peg in a round hole.  Today, that would make him similar to Carolina’s Christian McCaffrey, who is widely considered the best all-around RB in the game.

At 6-foot-2, 215 pounds, Anderson had the size and speed to be a perfect spread offense RB.  In his career, he ran for 4,696 yards and 41 touchdowns while hauling in 209 passes for 2,548 yards and 14 more scores.  But he would likely dwarf those numbers in today’s game given that the NFL is now being played in a way that would have suited his skill set far better than the antiquated offenses of Vince Lombardi.

Another Texas Tech football alum who was ahead of his time was Sammy Morris.  Over the course of 12 seasons in the NFL, the 6-foot, 220-pounder totaled 4,311 yards from scrimmage while playing both tailback and fullback as needed.

With 166 career catches for 1,258 yards and a career catch percentage of 71.9%, he was more than comfortable as a receiving target.  But by the time he retired in 2011 at the age of 34, the NFL was yet to have fully embraced the spread offense schemes that have become the norm these days.

Of course, the Red Raiders also would have to pick up tough yards on the ground and that’s where Bam Morris would be a huge help.  The 244-pound powerhouse would be an ideal short-yardage back in today’s game after he 3,809 yards and 35 TDs on the ground during his seven-year NFL career.

These backs lack the star power of other positions that this offense would feature.  But there’s reason to believe that if Anderson and Sammy Morris were able to play in a spread offense, they would have been far more effective than they were because both were truly ahead of their time.