IU’s football team has a Heisman Trophy winner at quarterback, but the Hoosiers bring a balanced offense into Friday’s national semifinal game against Oregon in Atlanta.
That includes the formidable running back duo of Roman Hemby and Kaelon Black.
Together, Hemby and Black have more than 1,900 rushing yards this season and an average of more than 5 yards per carry.
Hemby said part of their success is not being selfish while sharing the position.
"Honestly, we have that brotherhood to where we kind of don't care who has the success," Hemby said. "I say to myself, we want to feed the hot hand. That's kind of how we operate."
Said Black: "I feel like when it comes to me and (Hemby), I don't want to call it a competition. It's one of those things where we both want to help the offense improve and do anything we can to make sure that we can succeed."
Hemby and Black have powerful, straight-ahead running styles instead of dancing around tacklers. That helps make them an entertaining duo to watch.
"Anytime you have a good running back tandem to where both guys can stay fresh and both guys can go out there healthy and we can play for one another, that kind of gives us the ability to run hard, to not hold anything back," Hemby said. "We're in the stretch to where we want to go win a national championship."