With very few exceptions, the SEC’s greatest running backs share something in common besides gaudy stats: They chose to play college football in their home state.
Which made settling on a list of the conference’s 10 greatest homegrown signees only slightly less difficult than tackling them in the open field.
10. Anthony Dixon, Mississippi State
Dixon rose from a homeless shelter in Terry, Miss., to the top of Mississippi State’s record book.
He ran for 3,994 career yards, a program record, and 42 touchdowns, also a program record. He ranks eighth in SEC history in yards and is tied for seventh in touchdown runs.
9. Carnell Williams, Auburn
A five-star force in the 2001 class from Attalla, Ala., Williams ranks 11th on the SEC’s career rushing list with 3,831 yards and fourth in career touchdown runs with 45.
He did that while sharing carries, never getting even 250 in a single season.
For context, consider seven SEC running backs had more carries this past season than Williams did in any of his four at Auburn.
8. Dalton Hilliard, LSU
How stacked is the Tigers’ historical stable of running backs? Hilliard, who still ranks sixth in SEC history with 4,050 rushing yards, is behind two others on this list.
Hilliard, from Patterson, La., also ran for 44 career touchdowns, which was second in SEC history when he left LSU in 1985.
Others did more in the NFL, but Hilliard and Bo Jackson were as good as it got after Herschel Walker left Georgia.
7. Errict Rhett, Florida
Rhett, from suburban Fort Lauderdale, arrived the year after Emmitt Smith left, stayed all four years and graduated as Florida’s career rushing leader with 4,163 yards.
That total remains the fifth-best in SEC history.
His 34 rushing touchdowns were tied for seventh when he left in 1993.
6. Kevin Faulk, LSU
Faulk, a prep star in Carencro, La., set school records that Leonard Fournette is breaking or chasing.
Faulk still is LSU’s career leading in rushing yards (4,557) and rushing touchdowns (46), and still ranks third in SEC in both.
5. Leonard Fournette, LSU
Give the New Orleans standout another year, and he could challenge for the No. 1 spot.
Fournette ran for a school-record 1,953 yards in 2015, passing Walker in the process on the SEC’s single-season list. He did it in a Walker-like 12 games, too. Next season, Fournette will take aim at Derrick Henry’s conference record of 2,219 yards, which Henry set in 15 games.
Fournette enters his junior — and likely final — season with 2,987 career yards.
Just three backs in SEC history have topped 4,500 — Walker, Darren McFadden and Faulk, in order.
4. Bo Jackson, Auburn
Jackson, out of Bessemer, Ala., won the 1985 Heisman Trophy and still holds the Tigers’ career record for rushing yards with 4,303. He scored 43 career touchdowns, two shy of Carnell Williams’ school record.
In high school, Jackson won two state championships in the decathlon, according to an ESPN.com story. He later became the first athlete selected to play in the MLB All-Star Game and the NFL’s Pro Bowl.
3. Emmitt Smith, Florida
Smith, from Pensacola, Fla., left the Gators after three seasons with a program record 3,928 yards before embarking on a Hall of Fame NFL career.
How great was Smith? He still ranks ninth in SEC history for career rushing yards, and everybody ahead of him — except Walker — played in at least seven more games. Five played in at least 10 more games.
Smith still ranks second in SEC history in career yards per game (126.7).
Without question, Smith is the greatest SEC running back in NFL history, having won three Super Bowl rings and rushed for a record 18,355 yards.
2. Darren McFadden, Arkansas
McFadden was a five-star prospect at Oak Grove in North Little Rock, Ark., who developed into a two-time All-American and first-round NFL Draft pick in 2008.
McFadden ran for 1,830 yards as a junior in 2007, when he finished second to Tim Tebow in the Heisman race.
He still ranks second to Walker in career yards with 4,590 and third in yards per game with 120.8.
1. Herschel Walker, Georgia
The pride of Wrightsville, Ga., remains the gold standard. Henry and Fournette pushed past him this season on the single-season list, but Walker’s 5,269 career yards remains an NCAA record for a three-year college career.
Fournette needs 2,273 yards this season to supplant him.
Walker led Georgia to the 1980 national championship as a freshman and won the Heisman Trophy as a junior.
When he left Georgia after that 1982 season, Walker had the best, second- and fourth-best single-season rushing totals in SEC history.
Managing Editor
A 30-time APSE award-winning editor with previous stints at the Miami Herald, The Indianapolis Star and News & Observer, Executive Editor Chris Wright oversees editorial operations for Saturday Down South.
