ZWK
Footballguy
A RB's college stats are just one part of the picture for evaluating a prospect, but if you can figure out which stats to look at then they can be a useful part of the picture.
In this post, I'll share the stats that I look at, and I have tables with the numbers for the RBs in this year's draft class, which formed one part of my RB evaluations (pre-combine, post-combine). The tables show players' combined stats for the past two seasons, and I've also included a line for Knile Davis's 2010 season. (Similar post on WRs here.)
First, three obvious stats that I did not use. Total rushing yards is not very informative; it doesn't take NFL-caliber skills to get 300 carries in college or to get a lot of yards with those carries. Yards per carry is better, but it can be heavily influenced by usage (e.g., number of goal-line / short yardage carries), by the scheme and quality of the offensive line, and by a few very long gains; I think I've found better stats which capture the information contained in YPC. Touchdown totals also seem like a weak indicator of NFL success, since they depend so heavily on how many carries a RB gets near the goal-line; I haven't ignored TDs entirely but I did not look at raw touchdown totals. I sliced and diced the numbers in other ways.
Here are the stats that I looked at. First, number of 20+ yard runs. Yards near the line of scrimmage are heavily dependent on blocking and scheme, but getting a 20-yard gain typically requires something from the RB - some combination of speed, agility, power, and decision-making to get past defenders at the second level. I suspect that yards past 20 are again less informative - I don't think that a 60-yard run provides much extra evidence of a RB's skill than a 20-yard run, especially if you're getting information on raw speed from other sources. So the first statistic that I look at is what percent of a RB's carries went for 20+ yards (excluding red zone carries, which cannot go for more than 20 yards). Data from cfbstats.com.
20+ Yard Carry Rate
Player Pct 20+ #/AttKerwynn Williams 10.3% 25/242Eddie Lacy 9.9% 24/243Johnathan Franklin 7.8% 30/387Curtis McNeal 7.5% 16/214Knile Davis 2010 7.0% 12/171Chris Thompson 7.0% 7/100Montel Harris 6.6% 12/183Isi Sofele 6.4% 22/346Kenjon Barner 6.1% 21/345Montee Ball 5.9% 30/508Ray Graham 5.8% 18/311Andre Ellington 5.8% 20/346Dennis Johnson 5.6% 11/195Joseph Randle 5.6% 20/360Zac Stacy 5.5% 19/344Cierre Wood 5.4% 15/277Christine Michael 5.3% 10/190Giovani Bernard 5.2% 18/347Onterio McCalebb 5.1% 9/175LeVeon Bell 5.1% 23/453D.J. Harper 5.0% 13/260Marcus Lattimore 4.7% 12/255Cameron Marshall 4.3% 12/280Michael Ford 4.2% 7/165Akeem Shavers 4.2% 10/237Rex Burkhead 4.2% 13/312Stepfan Taylor 3.9% 18/463Stefphon Jefferson 3.7% 13/350Robbie Rouse 3.7% 19/514Mike Gillislee 3.6% 9/251Jawan Jamison 3.3% 14/420Theo Riddick 2.5% 4/160Spencer Ware 2.4% 5/212Knile Davis 1.0% 1/98Not a bad list - you may notice that Eddie Lacy is way ahead of the pack (alongside Kerwynn Williams), while most of the rest of the top guys are smaller, fast players. Knile Davis is fifth (2010) and last (2012).Looking at long gains probably tends to overrate the small speed backs; the boom-or-bust guys who often get the ball in space and aren't so good at picking up the tough yard. The second area to look at, to counterbalance this problem, is power running. The toughest yard to get is the last one, so I looked at the red zone: how many red zone rushing touchdowns each player scored, divided by their number of red zone rushing attempts. Data on red zone carries also comes from cfbstats.com, who don't have any more fine-grained breakdown of red zone carries (e.g., carries from inside the 10 vs. those from the 11-20), so this stat is what we get.
Red Zone TD Rate
Player RZ TD% TD/AttMarcus Lattimore 35.3% 18/51Eddie Lacy 33.9% 19/56Montee Ball 30.3% 47/155Christine Michael 29.8% 14/47Onterio McCalebb 29.0% 9/31Zac Stacy 28.1% 18/64Michael Ford 27.3% 9/33Joseph Randle 27.0% 33/122Kenjon Barner 26.7% 23/86Stefphon Jefferson 26.3% 25/95Ray Graham 25.3% 19/75Cameron Marshall 25.3% 22/87Giovani Bernard 25.0% 19/76Rex Burkhead 24.6% 17/69Knile Davis 2010 24.2% 8/33Isi Sofele 23.1% 12/52D.J. Harper 22.9% 19/83LeVeon Bell 20.7% 23/111Montel Harris 20.6% 7/34Robbie Rouse 19.8% 19/96Johnathan Franklin 19.7% 12/61Kerwynn Williams 19.3% 11/57Dennis Johnson 18.8% 9/48Mike Gillislee 18.4% 9/49Akeem Shavers 18.2% 10/55Stepfan Taylor 17.8% 18/101Cierre Wood 16.7% 9/54Andre Ellington 15.7% 14/89Jawan Jamison 15.2% 10/66Chris Thompson 15.0% 3/20Knile Davis 14.3% 2/14Spencer Ware 13.6% 8/59Theo Riddick 11.4% 5/44Curtis McNeal 6.4% 3/47I suspect that red zone rushing is influenced by the offensive line more than many other rushing stats, but to some extent to proof is in the pudding - just look at those top 4 names.The other place where a runner shows his ability to pick up the tough yard is in short yardage situations. cfbstats.com reports some data on that too - it shows splits for 3rd down with 3 or fewer yards to go, and for 4th down carries (which are almost all short yardage situations). Here are the number of successful carries (first downs or touchdowns) in these short yardage situations, divided by number of attempts (although because of the way that cfbstats reports the first downs & touchdowns separately, I may have double-counted some successes).
Short Yardage Success Rate
Chris Thompson 100.0% 2/2Christine Michael 90.0% 18/20Eddie Lacy 81.3% 26/32Onterio McCalebb 80.0% 12/15Kenjon Barner 79.2% 38/48Montel Harris 79.2% 19/24Robbie Rouse 79.2% 57/72Joseph Randle 79.1% 34/43Stefphon Jefferson 75.7% 28/37Spencer Ware 75.0% 21/28Theo Riddick 75.0% 15/20Knile Davis 2010 75.0% 9/12Dennis Johnson 73.3% 11/15LeVeon Bell 73.1% 38/52Giovani Bernard 72.4% 21/29Zac Stacy 71.4% 25/35Cierre Wood 71.4% 15/21Andre Ellington 69.8% 30/43Johnathan Franklin 69.7% 23/33Stepfan Taylor 69.7% 23/33Kerwynn Williams 69.6% 16/23Rex Burkhead 69.2% 27/39D.J. Harper 68.2% 15/22Montee Ball 66.2% 45/68Marcus Lattimore 65.0% 26/40Michael Ford 63.6% 7/11Cameron Marshall 61.1% 22/36Curtis McNeal 57.1% 8/14Isi Sofele 56.3% 9/16Jawan Jamison 55.2% 16/29Knile Davis 54.5% 6/11Ray Graham 53.3% 16/30Akeem Shavers 46.7% 14/30Mike Gillislee 38.9% 7/18That's three lists in a row with Eddie Lacy in the top three; Christine Michael was also near the top in both of these, and Lattimore, Ball, Stacy, and Randle did pretty well (though less consistently). There are a few smaller backs mixed in near the top; I suspect that McCalebb & Barner benefited from plays that were not traditional short-yardage runs, and Chris Thompson's short yardage perfection on a tiny sample size is pretty much meaningless.Running backs who are good receivers can add a lot of fantasy value through the air. Getting a lot of receptions is a good sign, since it indicates that his team trusts him to have an active role in the passing game. High yards per reception is also a good sign, since it suggests that he's dangerous in the open field with the ball in his hands. How to combine them into a single measure of receiving potential? I didn't come up with anything clever here; I just looked at how many receiving yards the player had in the season when he had the most receiving yards.
Receiving Yards (Top Season)
Kerwynn Williams 697Giovani Bernard 490Theo Riddick 436Robbie Rouse 435Joseph Randle 427Marcus Lattimore 412Akeem Shavers 370Onterio McCalebb 344Ray Graham 340Johnathan Franklin 323Jawan Jamison 323Montee Ball 306Stepfan Taylor 287LeVeon Bell 267Kenjon Barner 256Dennis Johnson 255Chris Thompson 248Andre Ellington 232Spencer Ware 230Cameron Marshall 227Zac Stacy 205Eddie Lacy 189Cierre Wood 189Rex Burkhead 177Christine Michael 174Stefphon Jefferson 170D.J. Harper 163Mike Gillislee 159Knile Davis 157Montel Harris 112Curtis McNeal 111Isi Sofele 67Michael Ford 29This seems pretty informative about the guys near the top of the list; with the guys near the bottom it's less clear if the low numbers are because of the player or the offensive scheme & roles.One more stat I looked at - fumbles. With a select few exceptions, a RB who can't hang onto the ball will fumble himself out of a job. I haven't found a great source for fumble data, but CBS's fantasy site does show fumbles lost so I went with that (it would be better to count all fumbles, not just lost fumbles, but I haven't found those data).
Fumbles Lost Per Touch (Approximate)
Spencer Ware 0.00% 0/309Chris Thompson 0.00% 0/122Andre Ellington 0.21% 1/478D.J. Harper 0.26% 1/381Akeem Shavers 0.29% 1/346LeVeon Bell 0.32% 2/618Jawan Jamison 0.37% 2/534Mike Gillislee 0.38% 1/264Montee Ball 0.42% 3/710Ray Graham 0.44% 2/454Rex Burkhead 0.48% 2/415Montel Harris 0.51% 1/197Giovani Bernard 0.57% 3/530Eddie Lacy 0.59% 2/339Kenjon Barner 0.62% 3/486Stepfan Taylor 0.64% 4/623Theo Riddick 0.66% 2/305Zac Stacy 0.67% 3/447Robbie Rouse 0.72% 5/693Onterio McCalebb 0.75% 2/266Stefphon Jefferson 0.76% 3/396Kerwynn Williams 0.76% 3/394Cierre Wood 0.84% 3/358Michael Ford 0.99% 2/203Cameron Marshall 0.99% 4/403Johnathan Franklin 1.00% 5/498Curtis McNeal 1.08% 3/277Joseph Randle 1.10% 6/543Marcus Lattimore 1.14% 4/350Isi Sofele 1.46% 6/411Christine Michael 1.62% 4/247Dennis Johnson 1.70% 5/295Knile Davis 2.28% 3/132I've heard a lot about Knile Davis and Johnathan Franklin's fumbling problems; it's interesting to see Lattimore and Michael joining them near the bottom of this list.This stats-based approach has some obvious limitations. For one thing, the stats that are probably the most useful for evaluating a RB, independent of his line and scheme, are not included: yards after contact & broken tackles. Those are among the stats that I rely on the most for evaluating NFL RBs (e.g., Pro Football Focus's Elusive Rating), and they are what I'd most like to see for college RBs, but as far as I can tell they aren't publicly available. STATS, Inc. does keep at least some of those numbers, since they reported last year that David Wilson led the league in yards after contact, but apparently they're proprietary.
But I can still use the information that I have. I took the stats that I looked at - Long Runs (20+ Yard Carry Rate), Power Running (RZ TD Rate & Short Yardage Success Rate), Receiving (Rec Yds in top season), and Fumbling (Fumbles Lost Per Touch) and put them together to get a rough ranking of the RBs based purely on their college stats. I re-scaled them to all be on the same scale (with 0 indicating average on each particular stat), and made it so that the stats that seem most important (like 20+ rate) had a larger weight (by giving them a wider range). I also fiddled a bit with RBs who had few carries, in some cases downgrading them or including 2010 data (which ensured that, for example, Chris Thompson's 2/2 in short yardage doesn't get counted as elite power running). Here is that ranking:
Overall Stats Rating
Player long power rec fum ovrKerwynn Williams 18 -1 10 0 28Eddie Lacy 17 7 -1 1 23Onterio McCalebb 7 8 4 0 19Johnathan Franklin 10 0 1 -1 9Kenjon Barner 3 4 1 1 9Giovani Bernard 0 2 7 1 9Chris Thompson 9 -3 1 3 9Montee Ball 3 3 0 2 8Joseph Randle -1 3 6 -2 7Marcus Lattimore -2 5 4 -2 5Andre Ellington 2 -2 1 3 4Knile Davis 2010 5 1 -3 4Zac Stacy 1 3 -1 0 3Ray Graham 2 -2 2 2 3LeVeon Bell -1 1 0 2 2Rex Burkhead -2 3 -1 1 2Robbie Rouse -6 2 2 0 -2D.J. Harper -1 0 -3 2 -2Cierre Wood 3 -3 -2 0 -2Montel Harris 2 -1 -4 1 -3Akeem Shavers -4 -4 3 2 -3Dennis Johnson 1 -1 2 -5 -3Theo Riddick -10 -3 9 0 -3Stepfan Taylor -6 1 1 1 -3Cameron Marshall -3 -1 0 -1 -5Stefphon Jefferson -6 3 -3 0 -6Christine Michael -3 4 -2 -4 -6Curtis McNeal 8 -8 -4 -2 -6Spencer Ware -11 -2 1 4 -8Isi Sofele 4 -2 -7 -4 -8Mike Gillislee -5 -3 -2 2 -9Jawan Jamison -7 -5 2 2 -9Knile Davis -2 -1 -2 -6 -11Michael Ford -4 0 -8 -1 -13You can see here part of why I would consider Lacy to be the top RB even if Lattimore had stayed healthy, why I was down on Stepfan Taylor even before the combine (while some people thought he had impressive college stats), why I have Johnathan Franklin in my top 6, and why Knile Davis is so befuddling. On the other hand, I wouldn't (and didn't) just go straight by these numbers - Kerwynn Williams did not impress me on video (he did a lot of running in wide open spaces, and wasn't all that good at making defenders miss), and Christine Michael was in my top 5 even before the combine based on a mixture of his size, athleticism, performance on video, and injury excuse for not doing better.I'm curious what folks think of these stats, and if there are other college stats that people have used to evaluate college RBs (or other sources for more stats; getting data on broken tackles or yards after contact would be amazing).
In this post, I'll share the stats that I look at, and I have tables with the numbers for the RBs in this year's draft class, which formed one part of my RB evaluations (pre-combine, post-combine). The tables show players' combined stats for the past two seasons, and I've also included a line for Knile Davis's 2010 season. (Similar post on WRs here.)
First, three obvious stats that I did not use. Total rushing yards is not very informative; it doesn't take NFL-caliber skills to get 300 carries in college or to get a lot of yards with those carries. Yards per carry is better, but it can be heavily influenced by usage (e.g., number of goal-line / short yardage carries), by the scheme and quality of the offensive line, and by a few very long gains; I think I've found better stats which capture the information contained in YPC. Touchdown totals also seem like a weak indicator of NFL success, since they depend so heavily on how many carries a RB gets near the goal-line; I haven't ignored TDs entirely but I did not look at raw touchdown totals. I sliced and diced the numbers in other ways.
Here are the stats that I looked at. First, number of 20+ yard runs. Yards near the line of scrimmage are heavily dependent on blocking and scheme, but getting a 20-yard gain typically requires something from the RB - some combination of speed, agility, power, and decision-making to get past defenders at the second level. I suspect that yards past 20 are again less informative - I don't think that a 60-yard run provides much extra evidence of a RB's skill than a 20-yard run, especially if you're getting information on raw speed from other sources. So the first statistic that I look at is what percent of a RB's carries went for 20+ yards (excluding red zone carries, which cannot go for more than 20 yards). Data from cfbstats.com.
20+ Yard Carry Rate
Player Pct 20+ #/AttKerwynn Williams 10.3% 25/242Eddie Lacy 9.9% 24/243Johnathan Franklin 7.8% 30/387Curtis McNeal 7.5% 16/214Knile Davis 2010 7.0% 12/171Chris Thompson 7.0% 7/100Montel Harris 6.6% 12/183Isi Sofele 6.4% 22/346Kenjon Barner 6.1% 21/345Montee Ball 5.9% 30/508Ray Graham 5.8% 18/311Andre Ellington 5.8% 20/346Dennis Johnson 5.6% 11/195Joseph Randle 5.6% 20/360Zac Stacy 5.5% 19/344Cierre Wood 5.4% 15/277Christine Michael 5.3% 10/190Giovani Bernard 5.2% 18/347Onterio McCalebb 5.1% 9/175LeVeon Bell 5.1% 23/453D.J. Harper 5.0% 13/260Marcus Lattimore 4.7% 12/255Cameron Marshall 4.3% 12/280Michael Ford 4.2% 7/165Akeem Shavers 4.2% 10/237Rex Burkhead 4.2% 13/312Stepfan Taylor 3.9% 18/463Stefphon Jefferson 3.7% 13/350Robbie Rouse 3.7% 19/514Mike Gillislee 3.6% 9/251Jawan Jamison 3.3% 14/420Theo Riddick 2.5% 4/160Spencer Ware 2.4% 5/212Knile Davis 1.0% 1/98Not a bad list - you may notice that Eddie Lacy is way ahead of the pack (alongside Kerwynn Williams), while most of the rest of the top guys are smaller, fast players. Knile Davis is fifth (2010) and last (2012).Looking at long gains probably tends to overrate the small speed backs; the boom-or-bust guys who often get the ball in space and aren't so good at picking up the tough yard. The second area to look at, to counterbalance this problem, is power running. The toughest yard to get is the last one, so I looked at the red zone: how many red zone rushing touchdowns each player scored, divided by their number of red zone rushing attempts. Data on red zone carries also comes from cfbstats.com, who don't have any more fine-grained breakdown of red zone carries (e.g., carries from inside the 10 vs. those from the 11-20), so this stat is what we get.
Red Zone TD Rate
Player RZ TD% TD/AttMarcus Lattimore 35.3% 18/51Eddie Lacy 33.9% 19/56Montee Ball 30.3% 47/155Christine Michael 29.8% 14/47Onterio McCalebb 29.0% 9/31Zac Stacy 28.1% 18/64Michael Ford 27.3% 9/33Joseph Randle 27.0% 33/122Kenjon Barner 26.7% 23/86Stefphon Jefferson 26.3% 25/95Ray Graham 25.3% 19/75Cameron Marshall 25.3% 22/87Giovani Bernard 25.0% 19/76Rex Burkhead 24.6% 17/69Knile Davis 2010 24.2% 8/33Isi Sofele 23.1% 12/52D.J. Harper 22.9% 19/83LeVeon Bell 20.7% 23/111Montel Harris 20.6% 7/34Robbie Rouse 19.8% 19/96Johnathan Franklin 19.7% 12/61Kerwynn Williams 19.3% 11/57Dennis Johnson 18.8% 9/48Mike Gillislee 18.4% 9/49Akeem Shavers 18.2% 10/55Stepfan Taylor 17.8% 18/101Cierre Wood 16.7% 9/54Andre Ellington 15.7% 14/89Jawan Jamison 15.2% 10/66Chris Thompson 15.0% 3/20Knile Davis 14.3% 2/14Spencer Ware 13.6% 8/59Theo Riddick 11.4% 5/44Curtis McNeal 6.4% 3/47I suspect that red zone rushing is influenced by the offensive line more than many other rushing stats, but to some extent to proof is in the pudding - just look at those top 4 names.The other place where a runner shows his ability to pick up the tough yard is in short yardage situations. cfbstats.com reports some data on that too - it shows splits for 3rd down with 3 or fewer yards to go, and for 4th down carries (which are almost all short yardage situations). Here are the number of successful carries (first downs or touchdowns) in these short yardage situations, divided by number of attempts (although because of the way that cfbstats reports the first downs & touchdowns separately, I may have double-counted some successes).
Short Yardage Success Rate
Chris Thompson 100.0% 2/2Christine Michael 90.0% 18/20Eddie Lacy 81.3% 26/32Onterio McCalebb 80.0% 12/15Kenjon Barner 79.2% 38/48Montel Harris 79.2% 19/24Robbie Rouse 79.2% 57/72Joseph Randle 79.1% 34/43Stefphon Jefferson 75.7% 28/37Spencer Ware 75.0% 21/28Theo Riddick 75.0% 15/20Knile Davis 2010 75.0% 9/12Dennis Johnson 73.3% 11/15LeVeon Bell 73.1% 38/52Giovani Bernard 72.4% 21/29Zac Stacy 71.4% 25/35Cierre Wood 71.4% 15/21Andre Ellington 69.8% 30/43Johnathan Franklin 69.7% 23/33Stepfan Taylor 69.7% 23/33Kerwynn Williams 69.6% 16/23Rex Burkhead 69.2% 27/39D.J. Harper 68.2% 15/22Montee Ball 66.2% 45/68Marcus Lattimore 65.0% 26/40Michael Ford 63.6% 7/11Cameron Marshall 61.1% 22/36Curtis McNeal 57.1% 8/14Isi Sofele 56.3% 9/16Jawan Jamison 55.2% 16/29Knile Davis 54.5% 6/11Ray Graham 53.3% 16/30Akeem Shavers 46.7% 14/30Mike Gillislee 38.9% 7/18That's three lists in a row with Eddie Lacy in the top three; Christine Michael was also near the top in both of these, and Lattimore, Ball, Stacy, and Randle did pretty well (though less consistently). There are a few smaller backs mixed in near the top; I suspect that McCalebb & Barner benefited from plays that were not traditional short-yardage runs, and Chris Thompson's short yardage perfection on a tiny sample size is pretty much meaningless.Running backs who are good receivers can add a lot of fantasy value through the air. Getting a lot of receptions is a good sign, since it indicates that his team trusts him to have an active role in the passing game. High yards per reception is also a good sign, since it suggests that he's dangerous in the open field with the ball in his hands. How to combine them into a single measure of receiving potential? I didn't come up with anything clever here; I just looked at how many receiving yards the player had in the season when he had the most receiving yards.
Receiving Yards (Top Season)
Kerwynn Williams 697Giovani Bernard 490Theo Riddick 436Robbie Rouse 435Joseph Randle 427Marcus Lattimore 412Akeem Shavers 370Onterio McCalebb 344Ray Graham 340Johnathan Franklin 323Jawan Jamison 323Montee Ball 306Stepfan Taylor 287LeVeon Bell 267Kenjon Barner 256Dennis Johnson 255Chris Thompson 248Andre Ellington 232Spencer Ware 230Cameron Marshall 227Zac Stacy 205Eddie Lacy 189Cierre Wood 189Rex Burkhead 177Christine Michael 174Stefphon Jefferson 170D.J. Harper 163Mike Gillislee 159Knile Davis 157Montel Harris 112Curtis McNeal 111Isi Sofele 67Michael Ford 29This seems pretty informative about the guys near the top of the list; with the guys near the bottom it's less clear if the low numbers are because of the player or the offensive scheme & roles.One more stat I looked at - fumbles. With a select few exceptions, a RB who can't hang onto the ball will fumble himself out of a job. I haven't found a great source for fumble data, but CBS's fantasy site does show fumbles lost so I went with that (it would be better to count all fumbles, not just lost fumbles, but I haven't found those data).
Fumbles Lost Per Touch (Approximate)
Spencer Ware 0.00% 0/309Chris Thompson 0.00% 0/122Andre Ellington 0.21% 1/478D.J. Harper 0.26% 1/381Akeem Shavers 0.29% 1/346LeVeon Bell 0.32% 2/618Jawan Jamison 0.37% 2/534Mike Gillislee 0.38% 1/264Montee Ball 0.42% 3/710Ray Graham 0.44% 2/454Rex Burkhead 0.48% 2/415Montel Harris 0.51% 1/197Giovani Bernard 0.57% 3/530Eddie Lacy 0.59% 2/339Kenjon Barner 0.62% 3/486Stepfan Taylor 0.64% 4/623Theo Riddick 0.66% 2/305Zac Stacy 0.67% 3/447Robbie Rouse 0.72% 5/693Onterio McCalebb 0.75% 2/266Stefphon Jefferson 0.76% 3/396Kerwynn Williams 0.76% 3/394Cierre Wood 0.84% 3/358Michael Ford 0.99% 2/203Cameron Marshall 0.99% 4/403Johnathan Franklin 1.00% 5/498Curtis McNeal 1.08% 3/277Joseph Randle 1.10% 6/543Marcus Lattimore 1.14% 4/350Isi Sofele 1.46% 6/411Christine Michael 1.62% 4/247Dennis Johnson 1.70% 5/295Knile Davis 2.28% 3/132I've heard a lot about Knile Davis and Johnathan Franklin's fumbling problems; it's interesting to see Lattimore and Michael joining them near the bottom of this list.This stats-based approach has some obvious limitations. For one thing, the stats that are probably the most useful for evaluating a RB, independent of his line and scheme, are not included: yards after contact & broken tackles. Those are among the stats that I rely on the most for evaluating NFL RBs (e.g., Pro Football Focus's Elusive Rating), and they are what I'd most like to see for college RBs, but as far as I can tell they aren't publicly available. STATS, Inc. does keep at least some of those numbers, since they reported last year that David Wilson led the league in yards after contact, but apparently they're proprietary.
But I can still use the information that I have. I took the stats that I looked at - Long Runs (20+ Yard Carry Rate), Power Running (RZ TD Rate & Short Yardage Success Rate), Receiving (Rec Yds in top season), and Fumbling (Fumbles Lost Per Touch) and put them together to get a rough ranking of the RBs based purely on their college stats. I re-scaled them to all be on the same scale (with 0 indicating average on each particular stat), and made it so that the stats that seem most important (like 20+ rate) had a larger weight (by giving them a wider range). I also fiddled a bit with RBs who had few carries, in some cases downgrading them or including 2010 data (which ensured that, for example, Chris Thompson's 2/2 in short yardage doesn't get counted as elite power running). Here is that ranking:
Overall Stats Rating
Player long power rec fum ovrKerwynn Williams 18 -1 10 0 28Eddie Lacy 17 7 -1 1 23Onterio McCalebb 7 8 4 0 19Johnathan Franklin 10 0 1 -1 9Kenjon Barner 3 4 1 1 9Giovani Bernard 0 2 7 1 9Chris Thompson 9 -3 1 3 9Montee Ball 3 3 0 2 8Joseph Randle -1 3 6 -2 7Marcus Lattimore -2 5 4 -2 5Andre Ellington 2 -2 1 3 4Knile Davis 2010 5 1 -3 4Zac Stacy 1 3 -1 0 3Ray Graham 2 -2 2 2 3LeVeon Bell -1 1 0 2 2Rex Burkhead -2 3 -1 1 2Robbie Rouse -6 2 2 0 -2D.J. Harper -1 0 -3 2 -2Cierre Wood 3 -3 -2 0 -2Montel Harris 2 -1 -4 1 -3Akeem Shavers -4 -4 3 2 -3Dennis Johnson 1 -1 2 -5 -3Theo Riddick -10 -3 9 0 -3Stepfan Taylor -6 1 1 1 -3Cameron Marshall -3 -1 0 -1 -5Stefphon Jefferson -6 3 -3 0 -6Christine Michael -3 4 -2 -4 -6Curtis McNeal 8 -8 -4 -2 -6Spencer Ware -11 -2 1 4 -8Isi Sofele 4 -2 -7 -4 -8Mike Gillislee -5 -3 -2 2 -9Jawan Jamison -7 -5 2 2 -9Knile Davis -2 -1 -2 -6 -11Michael Ford -4 0 -8 -1 -13You can see here part of why I would consider Lacy to be the top RB even if Lattimore had stayed healthy, why I was down on Stepfan Taylor even before the combine (while some people thought he had impressive college stats), why I have Johnathan Franklin in my top 6, and why Knile Davis is so befuddling. On the other hand, I wouldn't (and didn't) just go straight by these numbers - Kerwynn Williams did not impress me on video (he did a lot of running in wide open spaces, and wasn't all that good at making defenders miss), and Christine Michael was in my top 5 even before the combine based on a mixture of his size, athleticism, performance on video, and injury excuse for not doing better.I'm curious what folks think of these stats, and if there are other college stats that people have used to evaluate college RBs (or other sources for more stats; getting data on broken tackles or yards after contact would be amazing).
I have been looking at the 3 cone like this for a pretty long time. Not every draft class has players who stand out in the drill but some do. It would be nice to look at a larger data set of combine numbers and see what trends there may be. My cut offs of 7.0 and 6.8 are somewhat arbitrary just based on repeated observations, what I am looking for. Those baselines perhaps should be something else. Studying a large sample size could possibly improve on that I think by finding a truer medium.
