Top 10 SEC players ranked by career rushing yards, TDs

If your dream is to rack up rushing yards as an SEC running back, build a time machine and point it anywhere from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s.

If you covet repeated trips to the end zone, and you’re younger than college age, hope remains.

Herschel Walker, Bo Jackson and Emmitt Smith all matriculated within SEC country in the 1980s, while touchdown machines like Carnell “Cadillac” Williams and Shaun Alexander are among recent players to crack the conference’s Top 10 all-time list in rushing scores, but not yards.

It’s very difficult to approach 4,000 career rushing yards in the SEC now. It takes either transcendent talent, the type that can compete for two Heisman Trophy awards by the end of a player’s third college year (Darren McFadden) or a guy who is good, but not quite great, for four consecutive years.

Most players capable of such lofty career rushing totals race into the NFL after their third college season, eager to claim wages before their bodies wear down at the league’s most grueling position.

It would be a surprise if Derrick Henry returned to Alabama in 2016, but he could get within striking distance of the Top 10 with a strong ’15 season. Georgia’s Nick Chubb and LSU’s Leonard Fournette, with another 1,000-yard season this fall, could reach the Top 10 in career yards by the end of their junior seasons, which would represent a huge accomplishment.

Arkansas running back Alex Collins enters ’15 with 2,126 rushing yards and two years of eligibility remaining. If he holds that pace, and returns to the team in ’16, it’s possible he could reach the Top 5 in SEC history.

But again, those potential future members of the SEC’s Top 10 rushers by yards still must survive the urge to go to the NFL early as well as the stress and strain on their bodies.

Here are the Top 10 all-time SEC running backs ranked by career rushing yards.