MEET A TRANSFER: Anthony Grant
Huskers' top JUCO signee combines smarts with explosive-play potential
Nebraska made liberal use of the transfer portal this offseason, adding 13 total new players from four-year schools, seven of whom are likely starters. This is the third in a series of posts breaking down of some of the most prominent new names you’ll see on Saturdays, examining their strengths and areas of improvement and what sort of impact Husker fans can expect. Here’s a link to the previous entries on Ochaun Mathis and Trey Palmer.
OVERVIEW
Name: Anthony Grant
Position: Running back
Measurables: 5’11, 200 pounds
Eligibility remaining: Two years
Transfer ranking: 0.88 (No. 9 junior college player nationally, No. 1 running back)
High school ranking: 0.88 (three star, No. 403 nationally, No. 17 running back)
Relevant stats: 2,549 rushing yards and 28 rushing touchdowns in two season at junior college
Awards: 2021 NJCAA Offensive Player of the Year, 2021 NJCAA First-Team All-American
After a standout career at perennial high school powerhouse Buford (Ga.) — also the alma mater of fellow Husker back Gabe Ervin Jr. — Grant originally committed to Tennessee before flipping to Florida State and first-year coach Willie Taggart on 2018’s signing day. He served as a pretty middling kick returner as a true freshman before redshirting in 2019 and taking a midseason break from the program. He went through part of spring ball with new coach Mike Norvell before bouncing from Tallahassee for the junior-college ranks after the onset of the pandemic.
He initially landed at Garden City Community College in Kansas but left the program for unknown reasons after the fall 2020 JUCO season was cancelled due to the pandemic. He popped up at New Mexico Military Academy (located in ALIEN TOWN Roswell, N.M., and with notable alumni like Roger Staubach and COMEDIC LEGEND Owen Wilson) for the “2020” rescheduled season in spring 2021. Grant was an immediate hit in a part-time role, rushing for 819 yards in the eight-game season on 7.1 yards per carry.
He kept that efficiency up while receiving an increased workload in the fall season, rushing for 1,730 yards and 18 touchdowns, winning junior college’s offensive player of the year award, and propelling NMMI to a national title. Grant was at his best in the biggest games: 26 carries for 398 yards (!!!) and five touchdowns in the junior college playoff semifinal against Northwest Mississippi and 34 carries for 192 yards in the national title game against Iowa Western.
New Mexico Military primarily employed a run-heavy, Inside Zone-based option attack out of the shotgun that incorporated lots of Jet motion (not dissimilar from the package Nebraska used last season) but also incorporated concepts out of the pro I-Formation and Pistol.
The NMMI rushing attack relied EXTREMELY heavily on Inside Zone; when combining the run concepts that had an Inside Zone element — Zone Triple Option, Zone Insert, Split Zone and Windback — it accounted for an even 70% of their run game:
Grant was always the dive man on those triple option plays, meaning it was basically just a straight Inside Zone play for him. NMMI’s other best player was Oklahoma State offensive line commit Tyrone Webber (the No. 3 JUCO player in last year’s class), so it makes sense they went heavy on a concept where they could leverage the advantages their best players were providing.
I’m not sure how that fits with 2022 Nebraska, though. It definitely would have been translatable to the 2021 Husker scheme, but new coordinator Mark Whipple seems to favor more Outside Zone than Nebraska ran last year, which I didn’t see NMMI run a single snap of. That may be an adjustment for Grant.
STRENGHTS
Inside Zone Vision
Inside Zone is a play that asks something mentally of a back — the play is designed to hit in the B gap but the movement/success of the linemen in front of them makes the play more free-flowing and improvisational than a super-defined gap-scheme run like Power. The thing I was most impressed with on Grant’s tape — and something that I think is definitely translatable to his NU career — was his vision and patience.
Grant could have used his track speed to just run around some of the lesser athletes at the JUCO level, but he instead consistently showed sound technique and a running process:
Gun Trips Wing Open Strong — Inside Zone Insert
On this rep, the back is supposed to follow the tight end leading on the IZ through the B gap. He initially hesitates right after getting the ball, dropping his hips and anchoring down as he views the line in front of him. The hole is initially murky and not fully developed, and the weakside linebacker (the guy standing on the hash closest to the camera at the snap of the ball) is overhanging and reading Grant’s path to potentially go fill.
He gives a small step to his left — getting the weakside backer to hesitate and stop his forward momentum — before the hole fully develops and he accelerates through it (and then cuts it outside and does a VERY SICK hurdle.)
A back with poorer vision would have just run into the initial small hole for three yards.
On this next rep, you can really see him dropping his hips and analyzing the picture in front of him before picking the right hole and getting skinny/shifty to wiggle through:
Gun Trips Open Strong — Inside Zone/Bubble RPO
Watch right after he gets the ball: He somehow is able to slow down to almost a full stop while he views the picture while still keeping his momentum and staying on the balls of his feet so that he can accelerate.
Another element to his vision is he’s great at scoping out cutback lanes. Inside Zone doesn’t allow for as devastating cutback attempts as stretch or Outside Zone plays, but if a defense overcommits to the frontside of the play, there can be a hole available on the backside if the ball-carrier has the vision to see it and the quicks to get there.
Gun Trips Wing Open Strong — Orbit Reverse Triple Option
Here, Grant gets the ball as the dive man on a triple option look. This play is supposed to hit to the short side of the field, but the weakside linebacker blitzes right into the intended gap and blows up the hole. Grant again anchors down, but nothing comes open, so he lateral hops to his right and gets skinny through the backside cutback lane that presents itself. The opponent’s mike linebacker actually does a very good job here of keeping contain, so the play only goes for a handful of yards — but a handful of yards is better than zero or a loss. Grant’s big touchdown run in the Nebraska spring game also came on a cutback off outside zone:
Initial Burst
Part of the reason Grant is able to be so patient in diagnosing plays is that he can explode from a stop like a cannonball. He goes from a stutter step to top speed like a Ferrari:
Gun Trips Open Strong — Inside Zone Read
This is also useful as a method of tackle breaking/getting extra yardage. Grant isn’t big — right at 200 pounds — but his ability to get up to speed faster than anyone else on the field led him to some bowling-ball like runs where he crashes into a pile like a battering ram and pushes it for extra yards. It remains to be seen if he can keep that up in the Big Ten without injuring himself (I doubt it), but it was fun to watch!
Breakaway Speed/Athleticism
Once past the traffic of the front seven, Grant showed a second gear to pull past JUCO safeties and corners, who were pretty helpless when they got caught in open space with him:
Gun Trips Open Strong — Inside Zone/Bubble RPO
This is just fun. And I love his upright running style when he gets in the open field. My man is looking DERRICK HENRY-ESQUE with his head tilted back behind his shoulders as he chugs away.
Blocking Effort/Physicality
Grant is not the most technically sound blocker and I saw him definitely miss some assignments in pass pro, but he is physical in the blocking game and seeks out contact in the pocket in pass pro and and as a lead blocker on runs:
Gun Open Doubles — Jet Sweep
AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT:
Tackle Breaking
Grant displayed *some* ability to run through tackles at the JUCO level, especially when he got a head of steam going, but it was not a consistent strength. If you weren’t a good tackle breaker at the junior college level going against defenses with 195-pound middle linebackers from rural New Mexico, I don’t think you’re suddenly going to be doing it against whatever freakshow front seven guys Wisconsin and Iowa are going to be trotting out. You don’t have to be trucking dudes every play to provide value at running back — simply taking the available yards would be better than most of the play Nebraska has had in recent years — but I also think that is an area where Grant is going to struggle.
Relying on Cutbacks
Grant could be a big-game hunter at times, passing up short or moderate gains to look for the home run. To be fair, this worked A LOT, but it also cost his team some lost yardage and chances to stay on schedule:
Gun Trips Open Strong — Inside Zone/Bubble RPO
Here, Grant gets the ball on a little triple-option-bubble look. The hole isn’t ever really established, with a linebacker waiting to plug the intended gap. The end and overhang player are both locked on the dive read (so this probably should have been a pull and run or throw the bubble by the quarterback) so the cutback lane isn’t available, either.
This is just a dead play — the quarterback blew the read — so the only real option is to plow ahead into the initial hole for a couple yards and make it third and short. Instead of doing that, Grant jump stops to try to find a cutback lane and ends up taking a loss.
Third-Down Play
NMMI’s offense was largely built around running the ball and throwing deep play action shots off run actions, and the quarterback used his scrambling ability as the checkdown if things were covered downfield. This meant Grant rarely got work as a receiver. I saw him run a few routes, which didn’t look particularly sharp, and he only had one catch in the games I watched (and just 16 total on the year).
His pass pro was also a little raw — not for lack of effort or physicality — and he definitely missed some assignments. I think some of this is because NMMI’s very rudimentary passing offense didn’t have a ton of protection options or reps, but I think there will be a learning curve for him on pass pro, as well.
All of this together, it seems like Grant is a major question mark to play on third downs for NU this year. Nebraska has a pretty good third-down option in Rahmir Johnson, but it makes me view Grant as more of an early-down specialist than the true “three-down back” coaches have seemed to indicate they want.
EXPECTATIONS:
Grant seems like a really good player??? I’m aware the JUCO competition was not particularly translatable, but he shows a lot of mental skills and understanding of the position that go beyond the physical edge he had at that level. And he was physically talented enough to contribute at Florida State as a true freshman. I’m struggling to understand how Nebraska was his only Power 5 offer.
I think he has some questions to answer in pass catching and pass protection — though they’re not exactly sure-fire weaknesses as much as they are him not getting the opportunities to do them in junior college — and I question his top-end speed against better competition and his ability to break tackles and take a heavy carry-load at his weight. But even if those are negatives, he still seems like he’ll be the back with the best zone vision NU has had since Ameer Abdullah. I could easily see him being the Huskers’ primary early down back and threatening for a 1,000-yard season before he leaves Nebraska. I’m all in.