As part of our season in review, we're recapping the best offensive, defensive and special teams plays of the year. First up: Best running plays.

NU spread around its wealth in 2008, using three running backs in just about every formation and play the Huskers had in the playbook. But although Marlon Lucky, Roy Helu, Jr and Quentin Castille all had their moments this year, it was Helu who emerged with the most impressive runs and three 100-yard games down the stretch of the season.


Here are the best running plays:


Roy Helu, Jr, 52-yard touchdown run, Kansas. The nail in the Jayhawk coffin, Helu took the ball from quarterback Joe Ganz on a zone read play hit a wide open gash in KU’s defensive line and took it to the house. The run gave NU an insurmountable 31-21 lead in a 45-35 win.



Marlon Lucky, 58-yarder, vs. New Mexico State. One of the last classic power stretch plays that the Huskers ran all year. Lucky took the deep handoff, hit an outside hole to the right, then cut all the way back across the field over the next 30 yards before being driven out of bounds. Vintage Lucky, and arguably the best run of his career.



Quentin Castille, 37-yard touchdown run, vs. Kansas State. Castille had some ups and downs in 2008, but his highlight had to be this tough, physical house call on fourth down. Castille broke a tackle at the line of scrimmage, busted loose and galloped to the end zone.



Helu, 24-yard touchdown run, vs. Kansas State. A run right out of the Rozier portfolio, as Helu took the handoff, jutted hard to the right almost immediately to avoid a blitzing Wildcat, reached the sideline and took off for the end zone before anybody knew what happened. A rare combo of instinct and agility.



Helu, 57-yarder, vs. Oklahoma. It was garbage time, the game was over, as NU trailed the Sooners 62-21. But Helu wasn’t done. He broke a number of tackles on the play, including three right at the line of scrimmage, to help set up Nebraska’s final touchdown.



Best opponent run: Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin looked at Nebraska’s defense on a fourth-and-one, took a hard step to his left, and sprinted around the end in what amounted to a 47-yard quarterback sneak for a touchdown. NU fans who were in Memorial Stadium for the Huskers’ 32-20 win over Baylor probably understood they were watching the next coming of Vince Young. At least they should have.



See also: The 11 Best Defensive Plays

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Almost 24 hours after Nebraska effectively used its three running backs in a 45-35 win over Kansas, I was watched the rebuttal to NU’s approach.



It came in the form of the Minnesota Vikings’ Adrian Peterson, carrying his team to a 28-27 win over Green Bay. Did you catch it? Hope so. Thirty carries, 192 yards, a dramatic, 29-yard fourth-quarter touchdown that included a stiff arm at the goal line - when a man damn near kills himself to win a game, hopefully a football fan would pay attention.



Peterson, in short, was a beast: Angry, relentless, quick to the hole. What’s cooler in team sports than watching a great back paint a 60-minute masterpiece? Even when Peterson was stoned on a fourth down and he fumbled the ball, it was dramatic. If the musical embodiment of a quarterback’s two-minute would be The Rite of Spring, then Peterson’s day-long battle belongs to Lux Aeterna.



Watching it, you wondered: Why not Nebraska? And, yes, I’m aware that NU – and no other team, for that matter – has Adrian Peterson. Still, if you really want a guy to get the hot hand and wear down a foe, don’t you have to get him warmed up in the first place?




Then the New York Giants provided the flip side of the coin.




The Giants employ an “earth, wind and fire” trio of backs: Brandon Jacobs, Derrick Ward and Ahmad Bradshaw. They have roles. They’re good at them. And defenses have to prepare for all of them. And New York’s running game is just as good – if not quite as poetic - as Minnesota’s.




We’re not saying NU mirrors the Giants, although Castille is a big body like Jacobs. But, since the Texas Tech game, NU has shuffled its backs effectively. The production has been there, too; in the last five games, the running backs have averaged 157 rushing yards and 224 total yards. Out of that, Helu is the leading rusher and Lucky is the leading receiver, but Castille’s not out in the cold.




“The advantage of playing all the guys? One, they know they’re gonna play,” Nebraska running backs coach Tim Beck said. “So they constantly try to improve their game. It helps team chemistry and team morale when those guys know their hard work doesn’t go unnoticed. It’s a long season. At some point, you need them. You need them all.




Beck’s a good sport. He’s answered this question again and again throughout the year, never once asking to be vindicated, even if the evidence tilts toward his and offensive coordinator Shawn Watson’s approach. He does wonder why receivers, tight ends and offensive linemen can rotate without their position coaches having to receive constant questions.




“Nobody says anything about that,” Beck said.




True. But none of those positions are iconic as running back. Take Peterson’s game on Sunday. How many receivers - ever – have made that kind of impact in one game? Quick – tell me the last 200-yard receiving performance you saw in college football. Now tell me if you remember Darren McFadden’s one-man show against LSU in 2007. Heck, I still remember the game where Ohio State’s Keith Byars lost his shoe and kept running against Illinois.




It’s the romance of it.




“He’s also the best player in football,” Beck said of Peterson. “At any level. If we had the best player in football at any level, we’d want him to get as many carries as he can.”




At Nebraska, well, it isn’t quite like that. In any given game, Beck said, he wants to see which back best attacks a defense, or, in Lucky’s case, who’s best in pass protection. Helu’s been a liability in that arena at times, which would explain games like Baylor, when the Huskers had to pass more, and, as a result, turned away from the sophomore.




But the advantage to NU’s system, Beck said, is that all three running backs are learning – on the field, in some circumstances – every aspect of the role. Castille might be the big, short-yardage back, but he’s still standing next to Joe Ganz in the shotgun, taking option pitches, catching swing passes. Helu is still going to get his chances to pass block.




“The rocket back, the tailback, or I-back or fullback, they all know it,” Beck said. “If we ever need them, we can get in unique sets. The gameplan calls for that.”




It’s a key selling point for the Huskers on the recruiting trail. NU’s still in the game for a couple big-name backs, including Rex Burkhead from Plano, Texas and Al-Terek McBurse from Winter Springs, Fla.




“Guys realize if they come in here and do what we ask them to do and they practice hard and perform and get better, they will have their chance to show their stuff and play,” Beck said. “That’s got to be appealing to some guys. Some guys don’t get that opportunity. Some guys have to wait three years for that chance.”




Give Beck, Watson this much: At Nebraska, the waiting period is about three series.

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Saturday’s 35-7 win over Iowa State was arguably sophomore Quentin Castille’s most complete game at running back, as Castile gained 70 yards on 11 carries.



Castille also caught a pass out of five wide receiver formation, and was in the game on an a option play, although quarterback Joe Ganz kept the ball and was stoned for no gain.



Some pundits – this one included – have questioned Castille’s role in the offense, given his inconsistent blocking and running and his fumbling problems. Saturday was a solid retort to those criticisms that he’s little more than a short-yardage back.



“I tried to show it a little bit,” Castille said. “I can tell Coach (Tim) Beck and Coach (Shawn) Watson are getting more involved in not just me but the whole offense and letting us play in space.”



Beck said Castille, along with the rest of the running backs, are beginning to adjust to seeing the holes from the shotgun on zone read plays.



“He’s getting more patient as a runner,” Beck said. “Patience is something that’s really almost an oxymoron when you talk about running backs, but the good ones have patience…you’ve always got to keep defenses off balance. You can’t always put Marlon in there. Teams are starting to know that’s going to be the case.



“You don’t want to take those plays out of your playbook because teams are defending a player. And Marlon’s not going to be here forever.”


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