SJSU's Spread-N-Shred System: Floyd Chalk is a Name You Need to Know
SJSU's Spread-N-Shred System: Floyd Chalk is a Name You Need to Know
FCS transfer Floyd Chalk IV is rising up my board this offseason.
I want to have you to myself… for once.
- Vessel, musician
When I was preparing last month’s round up article—a document summarizing spring camp rumblings in the month of March—I came across an interesting tidbit from San Jose State’s spring camp. The OC, Craig Stutzmann, specifically mentioned RB transfer Floyd Chalk as a player that stood out.
Stutzmann mentioned that Chalk was a “punchy runner”. I thought: OK, I’ll mark his name down as one to watch, but didn’t think much of it at the time. Then as I began preparing this month’s version of the round-up series, I came across another SJSU beat report mentioning Chalk:
A lot of buzz for newcomer Floyd Chalk so far. The room is thin and he’s taking the lead.
There’s double goodness in that quote: 1) he’s taking the lead and this information is blatant enough for it to be passed on to us and 2) the room is thin. A thin RB room has been the stepping stone for many a pig of the bariatric flavour to emerge in this game of ours.
Naturally, I decided to investigate further. I was aware that the new staff coming in typically placed a strong emphasis on the run game, but I didn’t know the extent of that. I also had never seen Chalk play before (I didn’t get a chance to watch a lot of Grambling St. last year, unfortunately), so I decided to check out his highlights.
I was thrilled with what I saw from his—albeit short—highlight reel. His feet were lively, and he demonstrated nice vision and patience. Excitement came over me… could he be… a potential volume pig hiding in the shadows of Silicon Valley? Indeed, as I began to look further through this profile, I came out on the other end with the impression that Chalk is a must-draft player going forward.
And I’m not going to lie to you, the next thought I had was “do I share this one with the pigs, or keep it to myself?”, the answer to this question, of course, is obvious by now.
Indeed, if I didn’t cover Chalk, it’s likely somebody else would anyways. So here we are; today I am covering SJSU’s ‘Spread N Shred’ system, and explaining why Chalk is a name that you need to know for 2024.
FYI—you can find information on the RB depth charts of all 135 FBS programs here:
A System Like No Other
I am very interested in the new staff at SJSU. Mostly because there are a lot of questions regarding what their offence is going to look like in 2024.
The head coach, Ken Niumatalolo, who I’m going to call coach Ken going forward, comes over after spending 16 seasons at Navy (2007-2022) and one year as the TEs coach at UCLA (2023).
Now—as a disclaimer—I know the academies are sort of special cases when it comes to systems. Indeed, the offence Navy ran under Coach Ken was a triple option system, where the QB was basically a RB, and often times the leading rusher.
Nonetheless, the patterns here are noteworthy. During his time with the Midshipmen, Coach Ken had nine seasons with at least one player breaking 1000-yards rushing in his sixteen seasons with the Naval academy.
In his best statistical season in 2019, option QB Malcom Perry rushed 295 times for 2017 yards and 21 touchdowns. Perry also dashed for over 1000 yards in 2018, on 173 carries, scoring seven times in the process.
The remaining 1000-yard rusher seasons are presented below in descending order based on date (you’ll have to forgive my laziness for not wanting to type out each of these stat sheets):1
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2009
2008
As expected, the rushing usage in coach Ken’s system was absurd—albeit, not necessarily conventional. However, it is not his system that is going to be the primary force governing SJSU’s offensive tendencies. Craig Stutzmann comes over by way of Texas State (TXST), where he served as the WRs coach in 2023. Prior to TXST, he spent three seasons as an OC at Utah Tech (2022), and co-OC at Washington State (2020-21).
Ironically, OC Craig Stutzman actually had former SJSU runner Quali Conley at Utah Tech in 2022. Conley ran for 1092 yards and eight scores on 186 carries (next leading RB had 15) in 10 games (which would have been approximately 15.7 PPG not including receiving usage).
Stutzman also had Max Borghi during his time with the Wazzou Cougs, when he ran for 880 yards and 12 scores on 160 carries in 2021. That backfield was somewhat split, as the RB2, Deon McIntosh, had 111 carries.
Stutz is bringing what he calls his ‘Spread-N-Shred’ offence, which sounds epic, and is described as a descendent of the Run-N-Shoot offence deployed by Hawaii HC Timmy Chang, but with a stronger emphasis on the run game.
That’s music to our ears, because we want to keep the run-heavy tendencies of coach Ken’s philosophy, but (hopefully) concentrate the volume through a more conventional looking offence with coach Stutz.
Floyd Chalk IV — 5’9, 185
2023 STATS: 123-696-9 (11 games)
Chalk spent his last two seasons at the FCS program Grambling State. It’s curious that he would end up there given that he’s from California, but that’s neither here nor there. His second season with the Tigers was solid; his numbers won’t blow you away (he split work with another runner), but they are good enough to warrant our attention.
It doesn’t seem like he was used much as a receiver, which is unfortunate, but he did have a nice ypc (5.7), and he scored a lot in his 11 games. I also don’t want to put too much emphasis on his highlights, after all, they are high-lights, but I really was pleasantly surprised by what I saw.
What’s great about a player like this is that his ADP currently on Campus2Canton is non-existent, meaning he hasn’t even been drafted (or very rarely has) in the sample size of drafts so far. That’s the part that makes him a ‘must draft’ for me currently. The upside here is absolutely massive, and he costs literally nothing.
Now, that’s probably going to change moving forward, not just because of this article but as more people make their way through their offseason research, guys like this tend to get discovered more frequently. And, every time you draft him, everyone else in the league goes “who?” and then they look him up, and on and on it goes.
Notably, SJSU as a program is moving on from its top two runners from a season ago in Kairee Robinson (22.5 PPG in 1PPR formats), and Quali Conley (14.6 PPG). Between Robinson and Conley, the Spartans lost over 2000 yards rushing, 27 rushing TDs and over 450 receiving yards and two more scores.
Granted that was under a different staff. But, there is a large production vacancy here for 2024. That “thin room” quote above is starting to look very attractive right now.
Closing
I don’t want to be the one who opens the flood gates on a player like this, but at a price of zero, this is a player who has to be drafted. I would even draft him in a standard 12 team, 16 round draft at this point.
It’s harder to say how high I’d be willing to go in terms of what specific round/range I’d be willing to enter into the market for Floyd. We’ll have to see what ends up happening as more people get wise to him.
You can probably get away with waiting until the 20s if you’re in one of these bestball leagues people are doing currently. By the summer time, I’m not so sure that’ll be the case.
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Source: ESPN