staley had a great freshman year, especially by the standards of the day. remember, he shared time with another nfl running back, so it's not like he wasn't getting the ball due to lack of talent. everyone could see that the guy was going to be great. his qb was feterik.

his sophomore year was a mess of a team. terrible qb play and an antiquated scheme was going to spell trouble for the run game. worse, he was fighting injuries all year. that's a mulligan, in my opinion. my goodness, charlie peterson was his qb for a large part of the year.

you're right that he benefitted from crowton and doman, but who doesn't benefit from a system? are we going to knock detmer for playing in the byu passing offense? no. while the rest of the offense was pretty good, you still have to execute it. i don't care how good your qb and oc are. when you're averaging 8 ypc, that's ridiculous.

you can't fault his nfl time on him. it didn't have anything to do with ability. it was all about injuries. but it isn't about the nfl, anyway. it's about who was better in college. and if i got to pick one byu running back, i think you're crazy if you pick harvey.

harvey was a nice player, but his lack of speed hurts him in this argument. in the run game with harvey, you're forced into long drives because he isn't going to make it easy for you, especially against the better teams. all luke needed was an opening, and it was 6. in addition, harvey certainly benefitted from an all time great qb, te, and wr. at no point did staley have anywhere near the weapons around him that harvey had.

besides, if you want to talk about stats, that's fine. but by that logic, timmy chang was better than detmer. or emmitt smith was better than jim brown. that's obviously not the case.