I wanted a grad transfer or a true RB1 even before Brown's medical issue, so now I think it is almost a necessity.
However, part of me wants to go into the season with what we have now. The optimist in me sees Ingram becoming the feature back we all hope he can be, Young proving last year was a sophomore slump and proving to be a useful RB2 and short-yardage back, Johnson overcoming injuries and winning the Gaskamp award, and Whittington being the reincarnation of Ramonce Taylor.
If two or more of those situations come true we could have a special season. I wouldn't put any money on Johnson being able to stay healthy at RB, but he did seem to stay healthy on special teams. Maybe his injury problems are behind him, hopefully for at least one more season. Young wouldn't be the first to have a disappointing second season compared to productive seasons as a freshman, junior and senior. The term "sophomore slump" has been around for a while for good reason.
We really need at least two guys to play to their potential. The QB is always going to be an option to run in Herman's offense, but if we can get the RB room up to our standard they should take a lot of the running game responsibility from the QB. We want to run Sam (or any QB for that matter) as little as possible throughout the season to save him for the really important games.
If we can get two good players out of Ingram, Young, Johnson, and Whittington that would be great.
Adding a fifth player to the group through grad transfer would make finding two good RB's a more likely result though.