Skyline football followers, particularly of the armchair quarterback variety, have been wondering who will take over for fan-favorite, swashbuckling running back Tyler Washburn in the coming season.

Washburn, who is planning on playing linebacker at Eastern Washington University this fall, had a unique, half-bruiser, half-finesse running style that helped propel himself into the end-zone 21 times on the ground and once through the air. At the same time, he averaged 6.55 yards per carry, and 99 yards per game. Multiply that out: he’s almost a 1400-yard rusher. Not bad for a running back built into a passing system.

But that is exactly it: Washburn benefitted greatly from Skyline’s pass-first, spread offense. Nearly every play run by the offense throughout the course of the season was out of the shotgun with four wide receivers lined up near the neutral zone. Washburn was able to run to nearly the century mark each game (99.1 yards) for the same reason that Heaps was able to dash for 14 touchdowns over the course of the year: Because nobody expected it. And even if they did have an inkling, they didn’t have the personnel on the field to defend against it.

This isn’t to take anything away from the man who carried the ball for the State Championship score, but it is the truth. Washburn’s explosiveness helped him get those quick easy yards. While the defense bought pass, the offensive linemen locked up the defense just long enough for him to get five, or more, yards. He shouldn’t be blamed for exploiting such a perfect system, but there is a definite reason why he is not a running back at even a Division II level because in any other system he would be barely pushing 1000 yards.

Tim Tebow, current quarterback for the Florida Gators, won the Heisman Trophy in 2007 (the award given to the most outstanding player in college football) because of his mobility and the records it helped him break. The Gators run an offense very similar to Skyline’s, they like to play their All-American wide receivers often and make every down seem as if they are going to pass. When Tebow can’t find an open target, he can scramble for good yardage. This same philosophy applies to Heaps and Washburn, who are both very quick and take consistent advantage of the open ten to fifteen yards in front of them when unguarded. It should be a crime how easy it is: Heaps, like Tebow, won an all-state award on the same grounds, because he scored forty-five touchdowns on the run and the pass.

Now this isn’t to say there is a quick replacement to Tyler Washburn. The primary candidates for the position don’t have nearly the frame that Washburn did, being 210 pounds at 6 feet. They also don’t have three now-college freshman linemen who were KingCo 3A First Team at their position (C Willingham, OG Barron, OT Swanson). Or their former coach, Steve Gervais, who left the team to be an assistant at the University of Washington.

But what our future half backs can rejoice about is the system in which they play, which will be continued by the former-playcaller, now-head coach Mat Taylor. The pass-based, spread offense will live on, and so will these backs, even if they aren’t in the limelight that “T-Wash” once was.