re: Nick Chubb (before the injury) was the best SEC RB I saw the last decade.

Gurley and Lattimore were better

Guice is automatically disqualified since he doesn't know which way to run on a game-winning play.

I see a lot of people (well, lots of SC fans) mentioning latt, who I hadn't thought of in a while. I and the rest of America were awestruck by the dude when he burst on the scene and I remember him being a terror but I went and looked up his stats adn they were...let's just say not what I remembered. He's obveriously very good, but he has no place being mentioned with Gurley, Chubb, Fournette, et al.

2010 - 13 games
249 for 1197 (4.8 ypc), 17 TD

-That's a solid yardage and really good TD numbers. The yardage doesn't really qualify for "elite" status.
-Less than 5 ypc, again solid that most teams would take in a heartbeat but not elite.
-He broke 100 yards rushing 4 times over the 13 games played; against a 7 loss UGA, a 7 loss UT, a 5 loss UF, and Troy.
-The 3 best teams he played this year (national champ AU [x2], Arkansas, and a 3 loss but really good alabama) he rushed for 33, 93, 30, and 84 yards

2011 - 7 games
163 for 818 (5 ypc), 10 TDs

-Again, pretty good YPC and TDs but nothing that leaps out at you.
-Unlike freshman season he did manage to rush for triple digits consistently, doing so in 4 of his 7 games. Worth nothing that those 4 teams were ECU, Navy, 7 loss UK, and 4 loss UGA. Other than UGA, the only other "pretty good" team SC faced during these 7 games was a 5 loss AU team, where he rushed for 66 yards on 17 carries.

2012 - 9 games
143 for 662 (4.6 ypc), 11 TD

-Again, ok ypc and ok TDs
-We see a regression to freshman season, where he only broke 100 yards 3 times, and never had a game with over 120 yards rushing.
-The 3 teams with over 100 yards rushing against were vandy, kentucky, and a very good UGA



So there are your black and white numbers. After looking at this and reflecting I have 2 reasons why Latt is talked about in more high regard than is actually warranted, espcailly by USC fans. One, the injuries. Obviously that sucks but it's easy to romanticize a guy's potential when his time is cut short. "Oh man, if Latt had stayed healthy he could have [insert whatever]!" This isn't a USC thing, it's a human nature thing. I've done it myself many times with UGA players injured early in their careers.

BUT, I believe the absolute #1 factor that Sc fans prop him up for is because of his 3 career games against their 2nd biggest rival, UGA. His freshman year against us was one of the best games of his career and he almost single handedly shouldered the win. The next year SC won in a barn burner where ML again had a very good game. And his junior year is probably one of the best games in SC history if you listen to their fans talk about it. 3-0 against us with 100+ yards in each game.

But again if you look at the actual raw date, Latt doens't come anywhere remotely close to the actually elite guys. In fact Knowshon is actually a pretty good comparison for ML, although many of Moreno's stats are better in less games played.

quote:

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I would have to put Gurley above them.

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so would I, I honeslty don't see how you can't. Chubb was terrific and obviously has the stats to back it up but Gurley is the best RB I've seen in my lifetime. Gurley was faster, could get lateral quicker, had better vision IMO, and was a better receiving threat. The only real advatnage chubb had IMO was being stronger and having bigger legs so could probably absord a hit better in a crowd, but if I have to pick a starting 22 of players in my life to play a 1-time game I'm picking gurley without thinking twice.

The 7 tds vs zero tds going into october did anything but prove me wrong. When I say “thank you” for setting that silly comparison up, the proper response is “your welcome” rather than “sorry”.

Your post conveniently ignored the massive difference in touchdowns, and let’s double check to see if what you posted was even factually accurate. Let’s look through game 5 for each team:

Total tds:

Michel 7
Guice 1

Rushing Yards:

Michel 276
Guice 263

Receiving yards:

Michel 148
Guice 14

Total yards:

Michel 424
Guice 277

This clearly proves Michel was taking much more from chubb than guice was taking from fournette.

Fournette/Guice had more total yards. You're starting to look foolish.

My whole argument is refuting your "Chubb had Michel to deal with". That's awesome that Michel had more goal line carries.

ETA: I did mess up the rushing stats

Fournette had almost 300 yards more rushing before Chubb went out. He was just plain better in 2015. The backups didn't have much to do with it.