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Best Backfield in College Football?

ScriptOhio

Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.
Re: It would be difficult enough if Auburn merely had to replace its starting backfield. But there's more to it than that. Tailbacks Carnell Williams and Ronnie Brown will be high on NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue's draft day dance card.

Quarterback Jason Campbell won 31 games and finished his career as the Southeastern Conference Offensive Player of the Year.

"The best overall backfield in college football in the last 50 years," coach Tommy Tuberville said Tuesday. Gee, coach, don't hold back. The best? Fifty years?

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/columns/story?columnist=maisel_ivan&id=2008666

Anyone agree with Tubberville that Williams and Brown was the best college backfield in the last 50 years?

I would take Ohio State's 1975 Archie & Pete over them. You could also include the QB (Cornelius Greene) and flanker (Brian Baschnagel) to complete the entire backfield.

For what it's worth I'd take Penn State's 1971 backs of Lydell Mitchell and Franco Harris over Williams and Brown.

Of course it was over 50 years ago, but Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside may be the greatest backfield of all time. Glenn Davis was the elusive "Mr. Outside" to fullback Felix "Doc" Blanchard's "Mr. Inside" on the greatest Army teams. The Cadets were undefeated national champions in 1944 and 1945 and undefeated with a tie in 1946, the year Davis won the Heisman. Blanchard had won the Heisman in 1945. In those Davis-Blanchard years, Army went 27-0-1.

There are problably a couple dozen backfields that were better than Williams and Brown.
 
You could throw Craig James and Eric Dickerson in there if you wanted to jsut count the HB and FB too... oh yeah.. they went to SMU a while back for you younger guys. :wink2:
 
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The key is that he's including the QB. When you have the SEC Offensive POY in addition to two potential first-round RBs in the same backfield, he has an valid argument. I'm not necessarily agreeing with him, but I can understand his zealousness...
 
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MililaniBuckeye said:
The key is that he's including the QB. When you have the SEC Offensive POY in addition to two potential first-round RBs in the same backfield, he has an valid argument. I'm not necessarily agreeing with him, but I can understand his zealousness...
I totally agree with you here Mili. Those two back could easily be top ten picks and combined with the SEC off. POY. I can't think of any in the past ten years since I have been watching that would compare.
 
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Alan is right about USC. Also the 95' Nebraska backfield- Tommie Frazier, Lawrence Phillips-say what you want about him now,Ahman Green, and a really good FB-all Nebraska's FBs were good back then. Considering the fact that Nebraska ran an option offense, I would say that backfield is better than Auburn's from last year,IMO.
 
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I would also take Griffin and Johnson over Auburn but I agree with Alan about USC. Very scary indeed. Nonetheless, call me unrealistic, but I still think we will beat them for a national championship!
 
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What the hell, I'll try to rank them, based only on what they did in college.

Blanchard and Davis would be first, but we're only going back 50 years.

1. 1975 tOSU. Archie won the Heisman, Pete Johnson led the nation in scoring, and the Big-10 MVP that year was QB Corny Greene. Baschnagel was usually in the backfield as a wingback.

2. 1977 Oklahoma. As mentioned by L-Rod above. Lott, Sims, Peacock, Overstreet, and King were the best group I ever saw in the wishbone.

3. 1979 USC. Heisman winner Charles White, with Marcus Allen ('81 Heisman winner) getting almost 900 yards and 8 TDs at FB. QB was Paul McDonald, who got All-American mention that year.

4. 1983 Nebraska. TB Mike Rozier won the Heisman, QB Turner Gill and FB Tom Rathman.

Great backfields not in my top 4.

Lydell Mitchell (26TD's) and Franco Harris for 1971 Penn St.

Frazier(Heisman runner-up to Eddie)/Phillips/Green for 1995 Nebraska (led nation in team rushing and averaged 52 points)

Pony Express (Dickerson/James) for 1982 SMU.

Combos that only look great when you combine separate seasons, or add in the NFL success:

Barry Sanders rushed for less that 1000 yards combined in 1986 and 1987 when Thurman Thomas was the starter, so that combo wasn't an all-time great in terms of production at the same time.

Priest Holmes was so deep in Ricky Williams' shadow that he didn't even get drafted by the NFL.
 
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