And this was weeks before it happened did you have inside info did you know it was comeing.

While the news is hot now is the time to make an all out effort to pick up as many of our top recruiting prospects as possible!!
We obviously have many areas to improve…let’s hope that we can make this one of our better recruiting clases.

I’ve never seen a running back in high school showcase the combination of speed and raw power that Shell does, nor have I ever seen a RB at this level break so many tackles. If it makes any sense, he is an extremely violent running back. He doesn’t shy away from contact at all and has no problem lowering his shoulder, but he’s also deceptively quick and can make people miss much the way we saw from McCoy and now Graham.

If I had to nitpick his game a little bit, it’s that he may not have the same elite-level breakaway speed that McCoy had at Pitt. But that’s much more a testament to Shady than it is a knock on Shell. Shell has run away from plenty of defenders in his four years at Hopewell.

The thing that’s most impressive to me about Shell is the fact that he’s put up these numbers on teams that aren’t incredibly balanced, especially last year and this year (though not quite to the same extent). He was their only established threat last year and he faced defenses that routinely stacked nine and ten in the box, and he still put up unbelievable numbers and performances. And this is also a player who plays on both sides of the ball.

Here’s hoping he keeps his head on straight and realizes the opportunity he has. He absolutely could and should be a program-changing/program-defining recruit for Todd Graham and Pitt.

Shell has this burst where it seems he goes from 1st to 4th gear in less than a second.

The game tonight should be a good test since Central Valley probably has best team in AAA, and has a lot of team speed. Hope weather conditions don’t ruin it

HAIL TO PITT!

As good as I believe Schell is in high school and will be in college I hope he has the opportunity to use those skills at Pitt with the current coaching staff and system. After all his size 210lbs. and running style may not fit into the triple option spread five yard passing system.

I am sixty years old and I was with my uncle in the stands in 1963. I watched on ABC and was in the stands from 1973-1977. In 1977 I move to Atlanta but continued to go to 4 away games during the Marino years. I fear I may be have become so anti-Graham based on what I has witnessed and heard over the last six weeks that I hoping he fails. This causes me conflict since I believe I am equal to any zealous Pitt fan over the past 50 years.

Living in the Southeast and seeing the type of physical fundamental football of Alabama and LSU(my biggest thrills were beating Georgia twice in the Sugar Bowl), and having seen up close the quality and caliber of our atheletes in the seventies, eighties, although the numbers were not as many but top notch football players in the nineties, and up to 2010. I interpret Graham’s style of football, which is not at all what Boise State runs says we can not recruit with, match up to our opponents and I can not coach my personnel up physically and emotionally to compete (contrary to Dixon) so lets see if we can trick them as often as possible and sneak in as many victories in a season as we can.

Being honest it is obvious my adversion to Grahams style of football (I have no objections to a spread offense but if your system is not built with a QB who can extend the field vertically all the triple option bull-shit you run will not work against a decent defense because you will have 11 men within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage and you will face safty blitzies all day. A running QB who can not throw is worthless).

This is the reason that is obvious why my blogs have been mostly negative. To me it is like the Occupy Wall Street movement – the young woman carrying a poster simply stating “Its the system, sytem, system.”

Alcofan, Shell will go both ways and Graham will play him until he drops dead on the field.

Stoosh – you said “he’s put up these numbers on teams that aren’t incredibly balanced…” which means Shell will fit in perfectly since we have no passing game now and won’t have in the near future.

DRW – honestly, you know I love you big guy but do you not use paragraphs just to piss everyone off? I’m sure there are more than a few commenters who skip you stuff because of it.

As the writer of this article I am going to edit your post because i have the power to do so.

It’s hard to describe Dorsett’s style but he was a bit short of Barry Sander’s moves with unbelievable speed.

Shell doesn’t seem to be that, he seems to be more power & moves mixed with decent speed.

For what it’s worth, Graham’s system at Tulsa utilized a couple of bigger backs, almost fullback-sized. Alex Singleton was about 6’1″, 250. Trey Watts was 5’11”, 203 and Charles Clay was 6’3″, 230, and each of those three factored heavily into their running game in 2009 or 2010.

In your post above, you question whether a RB can be effective in this offense without a QB who can extend the field vertically. While I do agree with you that in order to function properly, this offense needs to QB who can force defenses to respect the deep pass, a running back in this offense without such a QB can still be effective. How else would explain what Ray Graham is doing right now?

I do see your point and I agree. My hope is that by the time Shell is hitting his peak at Pitt, most of those other pieces will be in place.

If Ray Graham can work in this offense, Rushel Shell should be just fine as well.

It’s the truth. The team Hopewell had when Shell was a sophomore was probably their most balanced – experienced, good QB with a couple of decent wideouts to take some pressure off the running game.

They came into 2010 having lost pretty much all of those weapons with the exception of Shell. They were breaking in a new QB and some new receivers, and I’m not sure how much faith Vestal had in the younger kids. They ran a wildcat package last year with Shell quite often, much the same way Pitt did with Shady in 2007 after Stull got hurt in the opener.

It’s certainly everyone’s preference to like a more traditional offense. I could care less either way. I think it’s completely unfair to judge TG after being on the job 9 months and the fact that he has absolute SHIT in the two deep at ALL but 2 positions. We were a crappy 9-5 team last year, in a crappy conference and we lost 55% of our offense to the draft and graduation.

It’s obvious we have very little of what he needs to run his offense. We have very little to a pro set offense very well either, hence the 9-5, 8-4 records the past 7 years.

The expectations of some here are absurd. We didn’t even have a head coach 9 months and 3 days ago.

Talk about SOP!

I will close by saying that I could careless about the overall system and style — as long as you win. Just win, baby. Shut up and win. Don’t sell me on what it is…show me.

Graham has 3 more years of showing to build his case, IMHO.

@cnorwoodaz…I don’t think anyone’s expectations are anymore than what the new HC has been touting and accepting since he walked in 25 days before signing day, am I right?

There’s also a kid on CV worth watching, Robert Foster. He doesn’t play as big a role in his offense as Shell does for Hopewell, but the kid is special. Pitt has him on their radar for 2013, but so do a lot of other schools. He would be awesome in High Octane.

TampaT…despite reservations Shell tore it UP tonight!

How about Foster? Like I said, he’s going to be special. I hope landing Shell makes him take Pitt’s offer seriously. He should have a ton of offers by this time next year, so we’ll see.