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Doak Walker Award rankings: Cameron Artis-Payne zooms up list

Christopher Smith

By Christopher Smith

Published:

The Doak Walker Award looked like a two-man race for most of the early season, with Georgia’s Todd Gurley and Wisconsin’s Melvin Gordon pulling a “anything you can do, I can do better” each weekend.

Then the Bulldogs announced Gurley’s indefinite suspension, and it looked like as many as four Big Ten running backs could compete for the award, including Nebraska’s Ameer Abdullah.

Now the award once again looks like a two-person race, with Gordon trying to fend off a late charge from Miami’s Duke Johnson.

Meanwhile, Auburn’s Cameron Artis-Payne leapfrogged four spots in our rankings after blazing to his first 200-yard game of the season. Check out these numbers.

Player A: 921 yards on 5.7 ypc, 13 TDs
Player B: 1,190 yards on 5.7 ypc, 9 TDs

Player A, of course, is Tre Mason through nine games last season, while Player B is Artis-Payne through nine games this year. Mason, if you’ll recall, finished with 1,816 rushing yards and placed sixth in the Heisman Trophy voting.

Mason benefitted from a wicked closing run: 164 rushing yards in a win against No. 3 Alabama, 304 in the SEC championship win and 195 in the national championship loss. Playing on the national title runner-up didn’t hurt.

Artis-Payne won’t have the benefit of playing for such a decorated team, but with five games left, he could easily finish with 1,500 yards and 12 or 13 touchdowns. That could be enough for an SEC rushing title this year and should slot him as a fringe candidate to be a Doak Walker Award finalist. That’s assuming he runs for about 100 yards per game — he could do more, especially if he gets enough playing time in two weeks against FCS member Samford.

RECAPPING SATURDAY’S SEC 100-YARD RUSHERS

Five SEC running backs topped the century mark this weekend, including a pair of players from an unlikely program.

  • Despite the loss, Auburn’s Cameron Artis-Payne tortured a maligned Texas A&M run defense for 221 yards on 30 carries.
  • Nick Chubb rushed for 170 yards on just 13 carries against Kentucky.
  • Stanley “Boom” Williams notched the second 100-yard game of his career thanks to a 56-yard touchdown in the second quarter. The freshman averages 6.9 yards per carry in limited action as a true freshman.
  • The Ole Miss Rebels featured — gasp — two 100-yard rushers Saturday in Jordan Wilkins (171) and Mark Dodson (128). Wilkins, a freshman, more than doubled his career total against Presbyterian, while Dodson, a sophomore, surpassed his 2013 total of 124 in one game.

Here are my weekly Top 10 rankings for the Doak Walker Award.

Player Buzz Previous Rank
1. Melvin Gordon, Wisconsin Gordon needs to average 124.8 rushing yards per game in the final three contests of the regular season and the bowl game to become the 21st player in college football history with a 2,000-yard season. 1
2. Duke Johnson, Miami Johnson’s 7.7 yards per carry leads the nation among power conference backs with at least 100 carries. His 13.0 yards per catch is impressive for a running back with more than 20 receptions. 2
3. James Conner, Pitt The Panthers have lost 5 of 6 largely because outside of WR Tyler Boyd, the offense has no other option. But Conner remains a true workhorse: 220 carries, 6.1 yards per carry and 17 TDs. 4
4. Tevin Coleman, Indiana Barring injury, Coleman lost his shot at the NCAA rushing title Saturday as Penn State broke his 10-game streak of at least 100 rushing yards while Gordon had a 200-yard day. 3
5. Ameer Abdullah, Nebraska Abdullah will have rested his sprained knee for two weeks before Saturday’s kickoff against Wisconsin. But those hoping for an epic RB battle between him and Gordon may be out of luck. 5
6. Cameron Artis-Payne, Auburn Artis-Payne has rushed for 526 yards in Auburn’s last three games (South Carolina, Ole Miss, Texas A&M). He now leads the SEC in rushing and is more or less matching Tre Mason’s 2013 pace. 10
7. Jarvion Franklin, Western Michigan Franklin has a chance to become just the fifth player in college football history with 30 rushing TDs in a season. It seems likely WMU will play in a bowl, giving him four games to score eight TDs. 7
8. Josh Robinson, Mississippi State The running back has returned to being more like a sidekick than a co-star the last two games, rushing for a combined 97 yards against Arkansas and Tennessee-Martin. 6
9. Javorius Allen, USC The Trojans did not play Saturday, but Allen has managed nearly 1,500 total yards in nine games, including eight with at least 100 rushing yards. 8
10. David Cobb, Minnesota The Golden Gophers stud ran for just 74 yards in a 37-point win over Iowa, but now has more than 1,200 rushing yards for the season in just nine games. 9

Dropped Out: None.

Christopher Smith

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.

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