ESPNU ranks the top 10 college running backs of all time.

TBST, I and many others think they got #1 right, but having Bo Jackson at #5 is off. No way Red Grange is a better back than Bo. No way any of those white guys without face masks should be on the top 10 list. God bless ‘em. They’re pioneers of the sport, but today they’d be average fullbacks at best, but more likely on their school’s club rugby team. Kinda like how Shaq would throw George Mikan around the paint like “the sisters” did Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption.

Everyone can agree that Herschel, OJ, Bo, Barry, Earl, and Archie were bad asses and no one would be hurtin’ if any one of them were on your squad.

Well, TBTS, the list is “top 10 college running backs of all time”, not greatest athlete of all time. Even in that category you have to look at what is considered athletic and an athlete in a popular sport. Baseball is much more popular than Olympic bobsledding and track and field, but doesn’t require too much athleticism (Babe Ruth, John Kruk, Fernado Venezuela, Cecil Fielder, Greg Maddux…).

Bo was an exceptional athlete, maybe the greatest, bitch slapping a non-athletic, but popular and high paying sport (baseball). If I were starting a baseball team, I’d take Bo over Herschel, but I’d take the latter for a college football team. Walker also held the world record for the 60 yard dash for a little while until it was broken by Carl Lewis in a meet in Dallas in 1982(?). Nice company. Herschel ran for 5200 yards in his 3 college seasons and Bo ran for 4300 in his 4 seasons. If he would’ve maintained his averages and played his senior season, Herschel would’ve finished with 7,014 career rushing yards. Basically placing the record out of reach.

Freak-
http://www.uga.edu/gm/300/images/Herschel8.JPG

Corn Nation, you bring up an interesting scenario; guts vs. talent. Yes, Red Grange would have the guts to take on Takeo Spikes head-on with a leather helmet. Then he wouldn’t do it ever again. You have made a dangerous, blanket statement about all of today’s players that can’t be backed up with facts. Players back in the 1940’s were, on average, slower and weaker than players since the 1980’s and to say that today’s players are gutless next to their 1940’s counterparts is personal opinion.

Another huge thing is that those white guys in leather helmets (hey, a great name for my new band) didn’t let the black guys play. It was a bunch of slow white guys against a bunch of slow white guys. Oh, what a show of “guts”. It would be about as entertaining as +40 year old men’s church basketball league. Look, us white guys can be fast and all, but let’s be honest, how many black guys were allowed to play major college football in the 1920’s, 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s? Very few nationwide and zero down here in the south. That is until 1970 when Southern Cal, with several black players, came in a pimped slapped Bear Bryant’s Arian tide 42-17 virtually ending athletic segregation in southern college football. By 1973 1/3rd of Alabama’s starters were black. I’m Dixie to the day I die, but, damn, my forefathers had some really jacked up opinions on race relations.

Easy Nebraskans, the rest of the nation can’t beat their perceived great humanitarian chests either as it wasn’t until the 1960’s that several black athletes were actually on rosters. Why does that matter? Simple, the best athletes weren’t out there until the 1970’s. So if that’s the case, how can anyone that played in the 1940’s be in the top 10 of any category that includes athletes from the modern era (post 1960’s)?

Oh, I know that. I’m not pissed at the thought someone says Bo over Herschel. It’s apples and apples really. Bo could’ve stuck to track and field, but had to chose a path and he could sprint his ass off for $10,000 on the track or $1,000,000 on the grid iron and diamond. Easy choice.

To me, Bo and Herschel were very similar, with Herschel getting the edge having the bigger body earlier in college.