How many carries are too many for the SEC's star RBs?

Since 2010, four drafted SEC running backs carried the ball at least 250 times in a single college football season.

Three of them — Trent Richardson and Mark Ingram of Alabama and Vick Ballard of Mississippi State — have fought through significant injury issues at the professional level. A fifth player, Marcus Lattimore, ran 249 times for South Carolina in 2010, but also caught 29 passes. He retired before playing a down of professional football.

Not a single running back got drafted in the first round the last two years, regardless of conference affiliation. With Marshawn Lynch opting to sign a two-year extension with the Seattle Seahawks, it’s possible that no NFL team takes a back in the first round again this year.

It’s a brutal position with an ever-changing cast of expendable players. The NFL career expectancy is short and the never-ending wave of bad news related to potential complications from head trauma is disheartening. There aren’t many Adrian Petersons.

So how much is too much for a college coach to ask of his running back?

Is it the job of the Nick Sabans and Steve Spurriers of the SEC to protect the future professional interests of their players, even if it means damaging the chance to win a game, considering the millions their universities pay them to do just that?

Is there a certain number of hits beyond which a running back’s injury risk skyrockets?

The SEC never has needed answers to those questions as badly as it does now. But they may not be answerable. Check out the number of offensive touches from the four prominent freshman running backs in the conference in 2014:

Nick Chubb — 237
Jalen Hurd — 225
Ralph Webb — 222
Leonard Fournette — 194

Those are historic figures, and they represent a historic workload. It’s rare that draftable college running backs put together even three seasons with that many offensive touches.

Excluding receptions and looking at the five most recent NFL drafts, SEC running backs who got selected averaged 467 carries during their college careers, with an average heaviest workload of 218 carries in a single season.

In other words, if a player like Chubb stays healthy and continues shouldering a major load, even if he enters the draft early after three seasons, he’ll blow past the average college workload and into an area that seems to put running backs at risk, at least anecdotally.

It also tells us that, based on historical data, these talented freshman may be pretty close to their statistical ceiling at the college level.

To continue with Chubb as the example, since he led SEC freshman running backs in touches last season, it’s hard to imagine him besting his 7.4 yards per touch by a significant margin unless new offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer suddenly has an epiphany and decides to double Chubb’s usage rate in the passing game.

Even for the most athletic, well-conditioned athlete, there’s a finite number of car collisions one can endure. It’s possible Chubb could surpass his 237 touches in ’14, but recent historical data tells us it’s unlikely, and if he does, it won’t be by much. Hurd and Webb are in a similar spot, and though Fournette has more room to increase his workload, it’s less than you may think.

As a head coach, though, it’s difficult to justify monitoring workload as it pertains to a player’s NFL future. Such a small percentage of players ever become significant pieces of an NFL roster, and that’s hard to project. What’s more, the coaches are making millions to procure wins for the university, and the players are getting full scholarship money.

Coaches have somewhat of a responsibility for the long-term health of the players, and also a built-in incentive to keep them healthy. Fournette isn’t any good to LSU if he’s vulnerable due to overuse and gets hurt four games into the season. That may be the best motivation for college coaches to take good care of the running backs.

It’s naive to think all four of those backs will get through another two or three seasons at full go with no injuries. Running backs get hurt. It’s a matter of when and for how long, not if.

Teams like Georgia and LSU also have enough other talent that they should be able to supplement the workload of Chubb and Fournette, assuming the second and third options stay healthy as well. It may be best for the Bulldogs and Tigers if their star backs don’t surpass 250 carries in any given year.

There’s no definitive number, like a pitch count in baseball, and every running back on every team is different. Auburn’s Cameron Artis-Payne (2014) and Tre Mason (2013) both carried more than 300 times, but in a read-option offense that often prevented them from getting speared the instant they touched the football. Barry Sanders, for instance, carried the ball often but almost never took a full-on blow from a headhunter because of his elusiveness.

With so many freshmen running backs getting so many touches, it will be interesting to follow their college and for at least some their NFL careers to see how the early workload affects each of them, if at all.

Check out the chart below for all of the SEC’s drafted running backs in the last five years and judge for yourself.

Small, who is anything but at 5-foot-8 and 244 pounds, played in three games for the Cleveland Browns as a rookie, but did not get an offensive touch and then got cut. He represents the fewest number of carries that an SEC player had entering the NFL draft in the last five years, and a good reminder that often the cause of a big workload is that a player is talented and helps his team win.

Lattimore never played an NFL down, and although South Carolina did push him to a huge workload in his freshman season in 2010, it wasn’t off the charts by SEC standards. In fact, Vanderbilt’s Zac Stacy entered the NFL with more career carries and had a very productive rookie season in ’13.

Richardson has been a major bust in the NFL, enduring two knee surgeries before playing a down for the Cleveland Browns, and already is expected to be released by the Indianapolis Colts, which paid a hefty price to trade for him.

Ingram had some knee issues coming out of college, and didn’t look like a first-round pick and Heisman winner his first few years in the NFL. But he ran for nearly 1,000 yards last year in his fourth season.

Dixon wins the award for “SEC workhorse,” carrying the ball nearly 1,000 times in four years at Mississippi State. In the NFL, he’s carried just 253 times in five seasons.