Oregon’s James Faster, Scarier Than Life

LOS ANGELES — There’s a portrait of a notably horrified tailback LaMichael James trying the Space Mountain ride at Disneyland on Tuesday, an eternally lifelong image that went viral when teammate Kenjon Bamer hastily posted it on Twitter for the world to see.

Funny he revealed another side of himself, an all-encompassing athlete recently known as the fastest runner on the planet, well, at least in Oregon at Nike University. For one afternoon, a day he spent at the happiest place on earth with his teammates, touring the popular surroundings of Southern California, a star running back suddenly looked frightened.

Relax.

He was seen having fun with his entourage, and when he steps on to the Rose Bowl turf Monday, James will overcome his fears. Because – trust me on this – he’s a fearless star player at his position anchoring what is a high-flying offense, maybe even the best in the nation as long as he is carrying the ball and gaining chunks of yards. Losing to Auburn in the BCS title game was painful a year ago. That alone left a bitter, fiery taste in his mouth, ready to finally stand the test of time and prevail in a BCS bowl game.

Never to celebrate a victory in a BCS bowl game, and until he finally hoists a trophy – which might be real soon, no later than Monday night — James can sleep well in his bed at nights. If he plays efficiently, as the most valuable asset in such a paramount event, the Oregon Ducks likely can demoralize Wisconsin. Then, when the time comes, he can dazzle in his signature game and reduce the painful memories of last year’s national championship game, a gut-wrenching 22-19 loss once Auburn kicked a field goal on the final play of the game.

Situations like these, of course, he’s partly a cornerstone – except when, as it is from other perspectives, he’s the necessary component to set the tone early and lead the Ducks to new heights. He is a terror on the field in each game against any opponent, leaving the impression that he’s truly the best running back in the nation, when it’s almost certain he’ll be projected the highest among running backs for the 2012 NFL Draft.

It’s reasonable to think so, especially when he has filed paperwork with the NFL for a draft evaluation and announced that he will declare for the NFL Draft. It’s really about James’ competitive drive that separates him from average stars on the collegiate level, ready to take on new challenges and contend as the Oregon star strikes our curiosity much. It’s not unusual that he’s the more watchable player, in other words.

The thinking behind it, mind you, is quite simple as James is an electric playmaker and has defied the art of explosion and quickness. The irony is particularly gratifying, and not once is there a dull moment when James puts on his racing shoes and finishes the night with a stylish performance, capping the nicest moment as Oregon’s offensive specialist.

The beauty of speed is Oregon’s nature, so mostly James is far more superior in this well-anticipated meeting – loudly creating plenty of buzz as Oregon’s speed versus Wisconsin’s strength. And he’s far more infallible to judge on the field. With that in mind, it’s not surprising he’s a political discussion, starting a national craze, where even chatter still swirled around James when he was injured and missed two games with a dislocated elbow early in the season.


As in a multitude of well-equipped running backs, James is an instrumental piece in Oregon’s explosive rush attack, a 5-foot-9, 195-pound junior tailback from Texarkana, Texas. The result is here — he essentially owns every rushing record in school history, including career rushing yards and rushing touchdowns. It would take clearly a poor performance by James to imperil his draft stock, a completely 180 degree turnaround but it seems logic to believe that won’t happen, as good as he is advertised with Oregon a win away from ecstasy.

This week alone, the yapping has been everlasting and annoying. For what it is, in three full seasons at the helm, Oregon coach Chip Kelly has taken a program into national spotlight. The downside of this is he hasn’t won a bowl game, although he’s a two-time Pac 12 coach of the year, although he’s groomed James and the rest of his powerful offense and although he’s led the Ducks to the Rose Bowl twice since 1995.

There’s nothing like, aside from the misfortunes in previous bowl appearances, having James run the fastest in a high-flying offense – the blistering, sizzling quickness within the West Coast’s dominant program, scarier than James riding a roller coaster.

Ah yes, it’s that scary.

Kelly prefers to make adjustments if his tactics are unsuccessful, but opponents usually have ample time to prepare a game-plan to neutralize Oregon’s high-flying offense, so he hasn’t employed a forceful offensive attack during bowl season. Known as a mastermind, the schemes have backfired in his face in games of huge ramifications, with the Ducks now 0-2 in bowl games since he became head coach.

If the Ducks are worried about the sturdy Wisconsin offense, they have every reason to panic a bit, realizing the Badgers are built with offensive toughness. And, believe it or not, Wisconsin’s Montee Ball, a counterpart in the marquee tailback duel, can finally earn respect. If the Badgers upset the Ducks, he and the school as Rose Bowl champs can merit prestige, national regards and more recruits in the future.

He’s not alone, and it’s not like he’s playing all by himself as it takes a total team effort. But he’s accompanied by quarterback Russell Wilson, a senior and transfer from NC State who finished ninth in Heisman voting, which forms a dangerous tandem and the toughest assignment for the Ducks.

It is, however, about chasing down James more than anything, even though Wilson and Ball assembles a bottomless nucleus. For at least this game, as logic tells us, even if he lacks size and the body mass, that James is extremely dangerous on the field and has the speed to blast into the open, finding all the holes and short cuts to run by the tacklers and sprint to the end zone.

So let’s see what happens. It will be interesting. The battle is for roses, and for what it’s worth, James doesn’t want to leave Pasadena empty handed.

Those cleats and bizarre uniforms are hanging at his visitor’s locker. The honeymoon he relished when he arrived to Southern California wasn’t nearly as scary.

But his speed?

That’s enough to frighten you.

Montee Ball Can Plead Case If Wisconsin Prevails

LOS ANGELES – We’re pretty grateful of tailbacks these days, thrilled and ecstatic to watch Montee Ball cut right across the field, sprint through a seam and break into open field by lowering his pads. Even as he’s hit and bullied by tacklers, whether he has a knee-jerk reaction or can’t avoid the collision of the rush, he gains large chunks of yards.

Although he finished fourth in the voting, as one of the five finalists for the Heisman Trophy, he is simply the best running back in the B1G, working behind one of college football’s relentless offensive line. One can argue that he is the fastest running back in the nation, even when he’s not credited, even when he’s not eyeballed in this country but leads the league in yards per game and has scored nine more touchdowns than any other player in the conference.

He’s not exactly dignified of greatness, you see. The truth is, the Wisconsin Badgers are not a one-dimensional attack with quarterback Russell Wilson racking up the most effective passing season in college football history, and while Ball is capping a monster season, Oregon’s LaMichael James is one of the most explosive tailbacks in the nation as well.

For such urge, some believe James is better suited than Ball. The point is, James was never denied, come to think about it, as the best running back in the nation – a junior not only smart in the classroom but on the field as well – an exceptional tailback to highlight the showdown of the deepest offensive powerhouse.

If he’d like to earn more respect for his record-breaking season, Ball can prove he’s a touchdown machine, like a robot of some sort, like a fast bumper car driving down a football field. He’s good but he’s hardly like James – and either way – he has been a star in Wisconsin, greater than the name Anne Pickett, the gal who established the state’s first cottage cheese factory.

The season came and he began to see his carries descend, which he wasn’t getting enough touches, demoted to third-string waiting in the wings of John Clay and Zach Brown. That’s when he realized he had definitely been cut loose at tailback, and painfully watched from the sideline in Wisconsin’s 31-18 win over Ohio State early in the season, a contest he did not play but was eager to have a chance to step onto the field.

There would seem to be compulsion surrounding the issue that forever bothered Ball until he finally was given another chance to shine and reclaim the running back duties, and had stopped pointing the fingers at his coaches for doing what was best for the team. Rather oddly, he pondered and almost switched his positions at linebacker, considering that he has the upper body strength and has put in effort of all his hard work.

There’s no doubt he absolutely has the body of a strong-bodied linebacker, plenty of speed and size to run around the offensive line to harass the opposing quarterback. Whatever we believe in regards to his mental and physical capacity, which only renders from his body language, Ball has strength like a heavyweight boxer and has been extremely versatile. This wasn’t what anybody foresaw, Ball having far-reaching conversations with his parents and quickly becoming focused.

As was his way, fortunately, to insert himself back into the lineup, Ball suddenly took advantage of the opportunity and played efficient in the second half of the Iowa game, and replaced the injured Clay. He scored proficiently, in what was his signature game with his game-winning touchdown on an 8-yard run with over a minute left in regulation. And ever since then, a star was born in Madison, WI.– this time on a redemptive journey, again, living the moment of BCS fun.

Probably the most exciting player in the nation, if not the quickest runner on the field come New Years Day, he is nationally projected the best running back in the Granddaddy of them all. The best news coming out of this is that he earned the nod over a slew of running backs at Wisconsin, and he’s the primary tailback gaining a significant amount of carries.


It was arguably disrespectful when, all season, he’s led the nation in rushing with 1,759 yards and has 38 touchdowns, the most in a single season for any major college player except for Barry Sanders, owner of 39 for Oklahoma State when he won the Heisman in 1988. If he really wanted to punish his opponent, the moment would come in the Rose Bowl Game, to redeem Wisconsin after a failed attempt last year by falling short to TCU.

The last time the Big Ten has won the Rose Bowl was when Wisconsin defeated Stanford in the 2000 contest. Guess what? Barry Alvarez was Badgers head coach at the time. So it was no problem to identify Wisconsin as the greatest football program in NCAA football for generations. The view from afar was evidently clear that he was the only coach in Big Ten history to win back-to-back Rose Bowls, celebrate with a solid class each season and happily inspire his players while holding roses following remarkable victories under his tenure.

It will take a lone win, one at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, for Wisconsin to feel the Alvarez days again. It will take the durability, versatility and quickness of Ball to survive against Oregon’s high-efficient offense. The sun is bright in Southern California, even when Wisconsin has lost three of its last four bowl games. And so it should, with a pair of the most prolific tailbacks in the nation, be a high-scoring event and rather interesting, a fun afternoon of dramatic football.

It’s hard, in spite that Ball is not so fascinating for many as there are more skeptics than there are believers but instead enamored with James’ resilience and toughness, not to imagine otherwise when James led the FBS level in average yards rushing per game as his counterpart Ball led the nation in total yards rushing.

By now, Wisconsin head coach Bret Bielema is thinking of his basic formula for winning games, which is hold onto the football, exhaust opposing defenses and exploit the ground attack through the speedy Ball, one of the Doak Walker Award finalists. It’s irrational not to think, as they seemingly had the best team in the league, that the Badgers can’t pull off the upset over the Ducks in the 98th Rose Bowl.

If this is one game of redemption, for what happened in the Rose Bowl a year ago, then we can suspect that the Badgers will try to have a Ball.