The point of my post was Satt and Riaola had to deal with the same injury problems and didn't get a pass, so why should Barthel?
As far as recruiting, the reason we got Dowdell is Oregon had three better backs ahead of him he couldn't beat out. When are we going to have a stable like that again? I would have liked to see us get at least one really good back out of high school this cycle. EJ put all his eggs in one guy's basket (Lacy) and he bailed on us.
As far as performance, we had a guy (Grant) who had no fumbling problem last year who suddenly developed one this year. We had a running back rotation that in my opinion was weird. They started different guys from game to game, and it seems like the minute somebody got a hot hand and started establishing a rhythm (Ervin), he got pulled. I perceived from my vantage point up in the 600 section the the backs often ran into traffic instead of the designed crease. That shows me the backs either didn't understand the play design, it was not communicated to them, or they don't have good "feel". And wtf is going on with Rahmir? The guy gets yards all the time when he gets a chance and went full-on milk carton last year.