ULRB Maurice Turner

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- I'm not the only one that looks at the absence of Jawhar Jordan and Isaac Guerendo and sees question marks in the University of Louisville running backs' room.

You're not the only ones who noticed that nearly 2,000 yards and 24 touchdowns walked out that Cardinals' locker room door.

Chris Barclay recognized that, too — and Barclay coaches the position on Jeff Brohm's team.

When Barclay gathered his guys before the start of training camp, he went to the grease board and scribbled this message:

Maurice Turner?

Don Chaney?

Keyjuan Brown?

Isaac Brown?

Duke Watson?

"Everyone assumes there's going to be a natural drop off," Barclay said. "And, you know, that's where I challenge these guys that it's time to now step up and search yourselves.

"I mean, because if we rewind back just 365 days ago, I don't know if many of the national publications were talking about Jawhar Jordan and Isaac Guerendo as being national guys that could be possible draft picks and things like that.

"It's about what they did in the body of work during the season. So they had to go out and earn it. One of the first things I did the first day of training camp is I went in the room, and on my chart, on the board, I have each of their names. I drew a question mark all the way down the board.

"Question mark, question mark, question mark.

"Because from the outside in, we must not have anybody in the room, because they all graduated away. So we just have lint and moths. Moth flies in here. There's no one even in the room.

"So you all have to prove yourselves. You should embrace it. And for me as a coach, I embrace it as well. Because there's a lot of people that think, 'Oh, he had two guys get drafted last year, he hit the lottery. That's just it doesn't happen much. He just got lucky.'

"So I've got to prove myself. And when I've embraced those things, I like to challenge myself. How can I elevate these guys?

"They may not be the top-end players, but we're going to find a way to be productive and elevate our play to where, yeah, we'll make some defenses fear us as well."

Let the record show that Turner and Keyjuan Brown, the two returning backs, combined for 73 carries, 349 yards and two touchdowns last season. Jordan and Guerendo did not take many snaps on the sidelines.

Barclay loves Turner's acceleration and envisions him as a big-play back. Brown has missed time with injuries.

Chaney was the No. 3 back for the Miami Hurricanes last season. He delivered 106 yards against Georgia Tech, and finished the season with 478 yards and two scores. At 5 feet, 11 inches tall and 220 pounds, Chaney has been asked to dance less and take on more tacklers.

"He's a thumper," Barclay said.

Isaac Brown and Watson are freshmen. Proceed with care.

Turner, a junior, and Chaney, a junior even though he played in parts of four seasons at Miami, met with the media Monday morning after the Cards' practice. I asked them if they had questions about Barclay's question marks.

"I wasn't surprised," Turner said. "We haven't shown anything out of the field yet. I know we had two guys last year that were explosive guys. So we've got to stay hungry and grind."

"We've just got to do what we've got to do and show and prove to ourselves and everybody else that we are better than the credit people give us," Chaney said.

Make a note of this: Jordan played in 19 college games, a dozen at Louisville, before he delivered his first 100-yard performance. Then he ran for 100 or more yards in 9 of his next 12 games.

Guerendo also posted his first 100-yard game in his 20th appearance at Wisconsin. That was his only 100-yard game over four seasons in Madison.

After injuries limited Jordan's availability in the second half of the 2023 season, Guerendo averaged 7.8 yards per carry (558 yards on 72 attempts) in the Cards' final six games. He had a pair of 100-yard games.

Guerendo transformed his opportunity into convincing the San Francisco 49ers, the Super Bowl losing team, into selecting him in the fourth round of the 2024 NFL Draft, 76 spots ahead of Jordan, who went to Houston in the sixth round.

Yes, Brohm has talked about wanting to upgrade the deep passing attack with his second Louisville team. But Brohm, offensive coordinator Brian Brohm and Barclay will not downgrade the running game. They proved they understand the value of closing out games by running the ball last season.

"We need more explosive plays," Barclay said. "We need more big play, 50-plus yard plays, all right?

"Because the 40-yard play, that's fine. But we need to be able to take momentum and take the air out of the stadium on the road and really ignite the crowd at home. You know what I mean?"

No question marks about it.

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