| Sign Up | Google+

Which Running Back is Your Heisman Favorite?

Stay connected for news and updates

NEW YORK - DECEMBER 11: The 2010 Heisman Trophy is displayed prior to a press conference for Heisman Trophy candidates at The New York Marriott Marquis on December 11 2010 in New York City. (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)

Yesterday's blind Heisman quarterback stats poll was fairly well-received, but a few people objected that it didn't include any running backs. It would have been difficult to do that within the scope of the overall Heisman race because, with only Trent Richardson trending on most Heisman lists, it'd be easy to pick him out.

So in the same vein as that post from yesterday, let's go with ball carriers today.

The ground rules are the same. All stats accumulated against I-AA competition have been thrown out. I again used touchdown percentage rather than raw TD numbers. To be even less helpful, I went with rushes per game and yards per game instead of the raw rushes and yardage totals. That gives you an idea of their usage rate and output, and it also evens out differences in the number of games played (as it differs from back to back).

"Boom percentage" is the percentage of rushes that go for 20 or more yards. The top 25 teams faced is according to the current BCS standings. The top 25 rush defenses faced is based on yards per rush allowed, again with no I-AA competition included. I do realize that running backs serve as receivers out of the backfield and sometimes work as return men too, but those stats might give some guys away. Let's stick to the ground game for now because this is all just for fun anyway.

Do you favor a less-used back with more pop? How about the guy with a larger workload who might not break off as many big runs? How much do you care about level of competition? What value do you place on the frequency with which these guys find pay dirt?

Name Rush/G Yds/Att Yards/G TD Pct. Boom Pct. T25 Opp. T25 Rush D
Player A 14.44 6.58 95.11 6.92% 6.92% 4 3
Player B 20.40 5.91 120.50 8.82% 5.88% 3 3
Player C 24.56 5.05 124.11 5.88% 2.71% 3 3
Player D 16.90 5.88 99.30 12.43% 5.33% 3 2
Player E 24.00 4.31 103.44 11.11% 4.17% 3 2
Player F 20.14 7.11 143.29 6.38% 7.80% 2 2
Player G 18.89 6.79 128.22 12.35% 7.65% 2 2
Player H 14.20 7.64 108.50 6.34% 9.86% 1 1
Player I 21.56 6.18 133.11 2.06% 6.70% 1 1

 

Those are your choices. Who do you prefer as a Heisman-caliber back? The identities of these guys are in a comment below; try not to peek before making your pick.

                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Recent Posts

Stay connected for news and updates

The Next Read

There are 10 Comments. Load Now. Loading

Shortcuts to mastering the comment thread. Use wisely.

C - Next Comment
X - Mark as Read

R - Reply
Z - Mark Read & Next

Shift + C - Previous
Shift + A - Mark All Read

Comment Settings

Live comment alert: Hide it!

Comments for this post are closed.

tracking_pixel_5351_tracker