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SEC rosters are saturated with NFL talent in the backfield this season, as is a common occurrence.
That’s despite seven running backs who left SEC teams for the NFL with college eligibility remaining, and eight running backs who got selected in the 2015 draft.
Nine players at the position landed on the Doak Walker Award watch list, an honor that recognizes the best at the position (with a community service element) each college football season.
Here’s the full list:
Tra Carson, Texas A&M
Nick Chubb, Georgia
Alex Collins, Arkansas
Leonard Fournette, LSU
Russell Hansbrough, Missouri
Derrick Henry, Alabama
Ashton Shumpert, Mississippi State
Ralph Webb, Vanderbilt
Brandon Wilds, South Carolina
Jonathan Williams, Arkansas
Chubb, Fournette and Henry represent the SEC’s best opportunity to win the award, with at least one of those players almost guaranteed to be a finalist.
Ohio State’s Ezekiel Elliott, Pitt’s James Conner, Wisconsin’s Corey Clement and Oklahoma’s Samaje Perine are just a few of the players who also could contend for the honor.
There were a few surprise omissions from the SEC, including Tennessee’s Jalen Hurd. Others that made our post-spring top 10 SEC running backs list: Alabama’s Kenyan Drake, Kentucky’s Stanley “Boom” Williams and Georgia’s Sony Michel.
An itinerant journalist, Christopher has moved between states 11 times in seven years. Formally an injury-prone Division I 800-meter specialist, he now wanders the Rockies in search of high peaks.
