Medina Today

Let’s talk old-school vs. new-school and football positions

Things change and I am all right with that. Things evolve and that, too, can be a good thing. But, sometimes things were OK the way they were and changing them for the sake of change is not all that acceptable. I guess it might be a case of old-school vs. new-school, and while this column deals with some of that, I believe we will share many columns on good old-school and poor old-school vs. improved new-school or you-really-messed-it-up new-school.

We could deal with the shift and analytics in baseball as well as the bat flip, or the vanished traveling call in the NBA, or using a prevent defense in football and taking a knee the last two minutes to run out the clock, or the shoot-out in hockey or many other topics that we will cover in due time.

The idea for this small treatment of the subject stems from a call I received from a reader who chose to remain anonymous. Too bad … he had an interesting take on several new-school items. He, too, wonders what happened to the NBA including mugging for the camera, the non-traveling issue and reliance on the three, but he was really focused on football, so we will focus on it too, for this talk.

The caller was piqued that several top-notch local backfield football players were overlooked for post-season honors because their role might have been as grinders or blockers in the old “fullback” role, and now, all conference backfield non-quarterbacks are called “running backs” by the conference.

Back in the day, as he brought up, there were tailbacks – fleet cutters and fullbacks – the bigger, slower grinders who also blocked for the quarterback and the tailback, and often went into the “D” line without the ball, leading the attack. My take on it goes farther back when we had halfbacks (like the tailback, except the old T-formation had the halfback and fullback lining up behind the quarterback). Wayyyy back, there were two halfbacks lined up and one fullback behind the QB, then one halfback lined up closer to the line and became a flanker back (receiver). Well, our reader/caller thinks there should be a differentiation when all-conference positions are filled. 

Good point by the reader. 

Running back honorees are generally selected on yards gained and electricity, but a fullback will rarely get the recognition in today’s game. Hey, under the new designation, would Jim Taylor, Larry Csonka, John Riggins, Marion Motley, Bronko Nagurski, (those are two GREAT football names) Illinois fullback Ray Nitschke, Doc Blanchard and Alan Ameche have gained their due recognition?

Now, fullbacks Jimmy Brown, Franco Harris and Earl Campbell would be running backs today, and would still have run the opposition off the field, but many great blockers might not have received their due in today’s world.  Is our caller right on target? What do YOU think?

Hey, write me at mike.blake@advantageinformatics.com if you have any topics to discuss. Let’s talk sports.

See you next time.