One of the things that hurt USC this past season were all the injuries at the FB position to Brandon Hancock, Ryan Powdrell, and Stanley Havili. The loss of these three fine players hindered the Trojans offensively as the FB is a big part of the two back USC offense. In past years the Trojans have lined up in the I Formation on about 40% of their snaps. In 2006 this number fell off by about a quarter or so as more 2 TE sets and 3 WR sets were used to make up the difference. Next year Steve Sarkisian has made it known he wants to get back to more 2 back sets (i.e. I Formation) which is the Trojan's basic identify on offense.
I looked up some numbers on FB and TE receptions for the past few years. The FB does not run a lot in USC's offense but he is a key lead blocker and catches quite a few swing passes out of the backfield at critical times for first downs. There was a nice catch by Mike Brittingham in the Rose Bowl against Michigan for example to pick up key yardage early in the game.
As you can see from the trend chart FB receptions had been on a nice upswing in recent years. David Kirtman was especially useful in this role in 2005 with about two dozen catches.
This year FB receptions got off to a great start when Ryan Powdrell caught 4 passes for 72 yards against Arkansas. Stanley Havili had four receptions in the two games he appeared in as well before the injury. Extrapolating those figures show that USC would have thrown the ball to the FB position about 35 times in 2006 if not for all the injuries.
Note: I did not list 2002 since the FB Malaefou MacKenzie split time at tailback and fullback. I could not allocate his receptions between the two positions precisely although I seem to remember him catching quite a few towards the end of that year. If half of his receptions were at FB then 2002 might have had 25-30 FB receptions.
I was curious if this meant the tight ends caught more passes for USC in 2006. In comparison to recent years they caught about the "average" amount.
The TE receptio number was not up though so most of the small reduction in FB receptions was picked up by WR's and RB's this past season. In hindsight the year that TE receptions really soared was back in 2004. That year WR Steve Smith broke his leg and was out for most of the year. Otherwise TE catches have stayed fairly constant over the past few years. In looking at the data I realized that TE Fred Davis may have set the USC record for most receptions by a tight end with 38 in 2006. That is one more than Dominque Byrd caught in 2004 for example. I could not find a "record" for TE receptions in the USC on their website. Looking forward I suspect that Fred Davis will catch more passes in 2007 and the FB position will catch quite a few more passes as well. And that combination is something that is going to give opponent's defensive coordinators plenty to worry about.