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Who's the Greatest Buckeye Tailback? (Please vote for THREE)

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Who Is the Greatest Buckeye Tailback? (Please make THREE selections)

  • Keith Byars

    Votes: 125 64.1%

  • Maurice Clarett

    Votes: 25 12.8%

  • Eddie George

    Votes: 180 92.3%

  • Archie Griffin

    Votes: 186 95.4%

  • Antonio Pittman

    Votes: 9 4.6%

  • Robert Smith

    Votes: 22 11.3%

  • Other

    Votes: 8 4.1%
  • Total voters
    195
  • Poll closed .
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ScriptOhio;926206; said:
Pete is undoubtedly Ohio State's #1 fullback of all time.
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Um, no ... that would be Bob Ferguson, but that's next week's poll. :biggrin:

Here are some stats on Bob Ferguson:

2,162 yards rushing (#15 all-time)
Lead tOSU in rushing three times (1959, 1960, 1961)
Averaged 5 yards per carry for his tOSU career
Scored 26 touchdowns for his tOSU career
Two-time All-American (1960, 1961)
Maxwell Award winner (1961)
Ohio State MVP (1961)
Heisman runner-up (1961; lost to Syracuse's Ernie Davis by 53 votes, the second-closest race in history)
National Championship (1961)
College Football Hall of Fame (1996 inductee)
Ohio State Hall of Fame (1987 inductee)
Ohio State All-Century Team

Some additional info:

NFL first-round draft pick
Once rushed for 529 yards in a high school game
Troy High School's football field is named for Bob Ferguson
Master's degree in sociology from The Ohio State University

IMHO, if Ferguson had won the 1961 Heisman, then there would be no discussion on who was the best-ever Buckeye fullback.
 
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Tough choices, but anyone who saw Byars befor he broke his foot will tell you he stood out from all the other greats.

Sad to see no mention of Harley, Janowicz, Cassidy, hell, even Jimmy Roseboro...

But when you have Byars, Archie and Eddie George someone has to get the cold shoulder.
 
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Buckeyeskickbuttocks;926196; said:
LV - I don't have the stats, but as memory serves Illinois was one of the better Ds in the land in 1995.... Simeon Rice was with them.... James Hardy? I remember they had at least 2 "great" LBs.... What George did to them was a shock... not so much that it was Eddie - he was already in the Heisman discussion by then.... but because Illinois was pretty stout.
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Illinois finished 5-5-1 and unranked in '95. WSU finished 10-3 and #7 in '02.

230 in your second game ever against a team that finished the season #7 overall and had a D that finished #8 against the run (87 Yards per game) looks pretty damn good... factor out the 230 that MoC had, and WSU only gave up 75.3 yards per game on the ground, which was better than us by 2.4 YPG that year... imagine instead of 60 or so, Larry Johnson going off on us for 230. that's the equivalent of what MoC did to WSU.
 
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Buckeyeskickbuttocks;926196; said:
LV - I don't have the stats, but as memory serves Illinois was one of the better Ds in the land in 1995.... Simeon Rice was with them.... James Hardy? I remember they had at least 2 "great" LBs.... What George did to them was a shock... not so much that it was Eddie - he was already in the Heisman discussion by then.... but because Illinois was pretty stout.
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lvbuckeye;932359; said:
Illinois finished 5-5-1 and unranked in '95. WSU finished 10-3 and #7 in '02.

230 in your second game ever against a team that finished the season #7 overall and had a D that finished #8 against the run (87 Yards per game) looks pretty damn good... factor out the 230 that MoC had, and WSU only gave up 75.3 yards per game on the ground, which was better than us by 2.4 YPG that year... imagine instead of 60 or so, Larry Johnson going off on us for 230. that's the equivalent of what MoC did to WSU.
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You both make good points. The performance against WSU was very impressive in retrospect, but the game didn't have near the build-up of the OSU-Illinois game in '95.

The disappointing season for the Illini notwithstanding, the media hyped the heck out of the matchups. One of those matchups was Eddie George against the Best Linebackers at Illinois since Dick Butkus (or so they said)... Kevin Harvey etc.

But the biggest matchup according to the media, the clash of the titans, the Battle Royale was going to be the war between Orlando Pace and Simeon Rice. They beat that drum all week long.

Then Pace went out and made Rice his Biznotch all day. It was awesome.
 
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BB73 reminds me that tomorrow is not just another day - and I had said I would name a third back I thought merited mention. At the time, no-one had mentioned him. I haven't looked through the remainder of the thread, so this final answer may end up sounding like a big, "Oh, Yeah him" kind of answer.

But, that aside, if you look through the top runners listed in the Ohio State annals one name kind of jumps out at me. 1970 -John Brockington. In an era when the featured back might net less than 700 yards per year - over a much shorter season than we see these days - John netted 1,142 yards. Which beat the prior years tally from the also notable Jim Otis (for whom Brockington was a key blocker) by over 120 yards. A full games worth of regular output if you will.

It was only one season - but that must have been one hell of a season. Think of it, in several fewer games than MoC had available to him, Brockington netted not even 90 yards fewer than Clarett. Plus, he went on and carried the banner into the pros with the Green Bay Packers for three fruitful years.

So, if I had to nominate a third - it would be Brockington.
 
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LitlBuck;925671; said:
Voted for George, Byars, and Griffin. I know I am going to get holy hell for the following statement but I do not believe Griffin was the greatest tailback ever to play at Ohio State. To a certain extent, he was the product of the system and a tremendous offensive line in front of him for all 4 seasons. I know that he had great running instincts but as far as being the best tailback I'm not so sure. Byars and George both had good instincts but also could catch the ball and were probably faster than Archie.

I guess John Brockington will be a fullback. I thought that he lined up as a tailback quite a bit but am unsure.
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FYI, this was at the bottom of page 1 in this thread. :wink2:
 
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