When Jaguars head coach Liam Coen was discussing the team’s offensive backfield during their offseason program, he called the competition for playing time at running back “truly wide open” between Chris Rodriguez, Bhayshul Tuten and LeQuint Allen.
Now that training camp is about to start, Coen seems to be focusing in on one back’s upside. Tuten was a fourth-round pick out of Virginia Tech last year, but he began his college time at North Carolina A&T and Coen said on The Schrager Hour podcast that he faced “a little bit of a learning curve” when it came to all the facets of playing in the NFL.
Tuten now has a year under his belt and no longer has Travis Etienne ahead of him, which has Coen looking for a major leap forward this fall.
“He does a great job of finding the end zone and his yards after contact and rushing yards, man — when he can get going and get downhill, I mean, he was 4.28 coming out. So he can fly,” Coen said. “Now it’s more so, he was so conscientious about ball security last year and doing right. Okay, now Tuten, you got it. You understand it more. Now just go be you. Go do what got you here. Go be special, that’s who you are. We’re definitely expecting Tuten to have a big year for us.”
The Jaguars exceeded expectations by winning 13 games last season, including nine of their last 10 in the regular season. That sets a higher bar for this year and Tuten making good on Coen’s prediction would help position them to stay among the contenders in the AFC.
Read the full article here
