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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.