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Topic: 100 RBs who had lots of carries and didn't stink
(Read 17167 times)

betarhoalphadelta · « **Reply #42 on:** March 10, 2020, 12:02:31 PM »

Quote from: OrangeAfroMan on March 10, 2020, 12:24:59 AM

It IS a statistical thing.
Why, oh why, do they have statistical thresholds for statistics leaders?
The highest yards per carry average in a game will always be more than that of a season...of a season will always be more than that of a career. Period.
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The leader in yards per carry with 900 career carries will have a lower yards-per-carry average than the leader with 800 carries. And if he doesn't, then he certainly does compared to the leader with 700 carries, and so on.
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I was following you until your last paragraph, which showed you don't understand this at all.

No, this falls to a much older debate.

But this is what you said:

Quote

If you don't account for volume, most any RB with fewer carries can be considered better than the guy with more carries. It's a statistical thing (which many here cannot seem to grasp). No, Sanders would not start sucking, had he started 3 years instead of 1, but he also wouldn't have continued averaging what he did in 1988.

No, not "most any RB with fewer carries". That was the point about White or Develin on the Patriots. That's the point.

In the previous argument you tried to say that lower carries = higher ypc. Whereas I (and others) said that ypc was more determined by role and usage, not volume. For example, look at Ron Dayne's career carries and ypc:

1996: 325 carries at 6.5 ypc (25 apg)
1997: 263 carries at 5.5 ypc (23.9 apg)
1998: 295 carries at 5.2 ypc (26.8 apg)
1999: 337 carries at 6.0 ypc (28.1 apg)

I included attempts per game because [per my previous point] just using raw number of carries can distort things. Wisconsin had 13 games in 96, 11 in 97 and 98, and 12 in 99.

But with Ron Dayne looking at carries by season it almost looks like he "gets better with volume", i.e. the more carries he got, the better his ypc average. When abstracting out to include apg, you see that there's effectively no relationship whatsoever between attempts per game and ypc over the season. I'll bet that if you really dig down into it, the ypc average differences per season had more to do with blocking / OL quality, or just normal variation, not in any way related to volume. Ron Dayne had a career average of 5.8 ypc, and you could make an argument that his average was going down 1996->1997->1998, but then 1999 came and his average started going up with the highest volume he had in his career.

So when you try to state that Barry Sanders wouldn't have continued averaging what he did in 1988, you have no leg to stand on. Barry Sanders assuredly didn't become less talented in 1989 than he was in 1988. We don't know if his blocking would have been better in 1989 vs 1988. We don't know if the scheme might have changed for the positive as his coach used a year of film to find more creative ways to get him the ball.

Sanders could have a higher ypc in 1989 or a lower ypc in 1989. You make a definitive statement that his ypc average would go down with another year of volume, and that's not defensible.

OrangeAfroMan · « **Reply #43 on:** March 10, 2020, 02:29:02 PM »

Barry Sanders, with the same usage, blocking, and all else would have a lower ypc average in 1,000 carries than he did in 350. THAT'S the point.
You're chopping it up season-by-season, which actually still makes my point for me. Sanders carried the ball 344 times in 1988. That's a lot. So in '89, with everything else the same, let's give him 400 carries, no - 500! Let's give him 500 carries THEN tell me his ypc wouldn't go down.
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By your logic, teams should just give the ball to their best RB every running play forever, while assuming their effectiveness will stay the same. It's absurd.
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There's a reason there are different thresholds when it comes to non-counting stats in sports. It'd be unfair to compare Ron Dayne's ypc average to RBs with only 600 carries, because he had twice the volume. His 5.8 ypc looks good when compared to other RBs with over 1,000 carries. It looks a lot more pedestrian when compared to RBs with only 600 carries, though. I wonder why that is?!?
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The larger the sample, the more drawn to the mean the ypc will be. No, Barry Sanders' mean wasn't 4.5 ypc or anything like that, it was obviously high. But if his 340 carries turned into 440 carries that next year, that ypc is decreasing.

betarhoalphadelta · « **Reply #44 on:** March 10, 2020, 03:15:47 PM »

Quote from: OrangeAfroMan on March 10, 2020, 02:29:02 PM

Barry Sanders, with the same usage, blocking, and all else would have a lower ypc average in 1,000 carries than he did in 350. THAT'S the point.

You keep making this assertion. You have never once supported it.

Quote

You're chopping it up season-by-season, which actually still makes my point for me. Sanders carried the ball 344 times in 1988. That's a lot. So in '89, with everything else the same, let's give him 400 carries, no - 500! Let's give him 500 carries THEN tell me his ypc wouldn't go down.

By your logic, teams should just give the ball to their best RB every running play forever, while assuming their effectiveness will stay the same. It's absurd.

Sanders carried 74 times in 1986 at 4.4 ypc. He carried 105 times in 1987 for 5.7 ypc. He carried 344 times in 1988 for 7.6 ypc.

In 1987, Sanders had 105 carries at 5.7 ypc while Thurman Thomas has 251 for 6.4 ypc. Shouldn't, by your logic, Sanders have had a higher ypc average than Thomas?

Yet in 1986 Thomas only had 173 for a 4.3 average. A much lower average than when he carried for 251. In 1985 he had 327 carries for a 5.0 average. In 1984 he had 205 carries for a 4.1 average. So again, like Dayne, his two highest ypc seasons were his two highest number of carries. Now, I'm not making a claim that more carries = higher ypc. I'm making the claim that volume and mean are unrelated.

Now I'm not going to state that the trend will continue. Giving him 400 or 500 carries, or giving your best RB the ball every running play forever, is not the same--BECAUSE the usage isn't the same. But the argument you're making is silly. If the defense knows you're giving the ball to Barry Sanders every play, his ypc will probably go down because the usage has changed. But that's a reductio ad absurdum.

What you're saying is clearly disputed by the stats: "Thurman Thomas got 173 carries for 4.3 average. You want to give him 250 carries next year and you assume that average will go up? Barry Sanders got 105 carries for 5.7 ypc (a pretty good number by all accounts), you think giving him 344 carries next year will cause that to increase?!"

I'm telling you that ypc is independent of volume.

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There's a reason there are different thresholds when it comes to non-counting stats in sports. It'd be unfair to compare Ron Dayne's ypc average to RBs with only 600 carries, because he had twice the volume. His 5.8 ypc looks good when compared to other RBs with over 1,000 carries. It looks a lot more pedestrian when compared to RBs with only 600 carries, though. I wonder why that is?!?

It's because of the signal-to-noise ratio.

Joe Schopper has a career completion percentage or 100% for Purdue, and a passer rating of 284.8. Why is he not on any lists of great Purdue quarterbacks? Because he's a punter, and has only attempted two passes.

You "qualify" players based on a certain number of attempts to filter out the noise, because one player who has 2 carries, one for zero yards and the other for an 85 yard TD, ends up distorting the records otherwise.

However, that DOES NOT suggest that the mean is dependent on volume. Because while Dayne's 5.8 ypc average may not be as high as the highest average for players with only 600 carries, I would be MORE than willing to bet that the mean ypc average for all players between 550-650 career carries is below 5.8 ypc.

There is more statistical noise with smaller sample sizes, but that doesn't mean that mean and volume are inversely correlated as you seem to assume.

Quote

The larger the sample, the more drawn to the mean the ypc will be. No, Barry Sanders' mean wasn't 4.5 ypc or anything like that, it was obviously high. But if his 340 carries turned into 440 carries that next year, that ypc is decreasing.

On that we agree. But where you make the unsupported logical leap is the mean will be lower as carries increase.

I say the mean is a function of player talent, offensive scheme, player usage, blocking, defenses faced, etc. Not of volume.

Cincydawg · « **Reply #45 on:** March 10, 2020, 05:00:11 PM »

Quote from: OrangeAfroMan on March 09, 2020, 01:02:28 AM

Anyways, here's the initial list we're going to chop up, roll over, fold and cut, and re-administer over and over until it's pretty and nice and good.

A few years back, "we" put together our own computer ranking with help from The Bobs. We started simply and then modified it, over and over, until it more or less matched the AP ranking, at which point we belatedly realized what we had done. (I was the chief culprit here.)

Our goal was to make something that basically reproduced a ranking we already had. I didn't realize that before the fact. So, if you already have a ranking in mind, you could just post that instead of a lot of preliminary jiggering to create that ranking.

I can recall much of what we did, a team got credit for the number of Div 1 wins any team it beat had. We took the square root of point diff. If you beat a team that had 7 wins, you got 0.7 points in addition to a point for the win, and then a function of point diff. I think we added in some further fudge factors .... unwittingly to make it "look right" (e.g., match existing polls).

OrangeAfroMan · « **Reply #46 on:** March 10, 2020, 11:11:16 PM »

Quote from: bwarbiany on March 10, 2020, 03:15:47 PM

You keep making this assertion. You have never once supported it.

You're picking and choosing individual player seasons to negate my point. I'm saying if you inputted all player seasons, it would show that I'm correct. I'm obviously, plainly just stating a fact. It IS a statistical "thing".

Let's make up a statisical mean for number of carries and a mean for yards per carry. Let's put it at 800 for 4-year starters at RB and the ypc mean at 4.8. These are both probably too high, but that doesn't matter.
Next, let's take Ron Dayne. About 1,200 carries and 5.8 ypc.
His mean - his personal mean - is higher than 4.8 because he was a better RB than average. We all know that. And in 150% more than the average number of carries, his ypc was a full 1.0 yards higher than the mean. That's fantastic! That supports the opinion that he was very good.
But what we can do with this data is also state that if he 'only' had 1,000 carries, his ypc would have very likely been higher than 5.8. He'd have had the leeway of it being higher - having not been bogged down by all those carries. And the converse is true - if Dayne had been fed the ball more, he would have yielded diminishing returns, and his ypc would have decreased with 1400 carries.
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No, I cannot cite the relevant studies that spell this out, but it's a near-certainty, because it's a statistical thing. You re-labeled it something in your post - the noise - but that "noise" is what I'm specifically alluding to. That's the thing!
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To jump to Sanders, I admit, we have no clue what HIS true mean for ypc would have been. But we do know 344 carries is a lot. We know 7.6 ypc is extremely high. So how is it not logical to assume that his ypc would decrease (from a very high point) adding to an already-high number of carries? How is that being invalid?

OrangeAfroMan · « **Reply #47 on:** March 10, 2020, 11:15:04 PM »

Quote from: Cincydawg on March 10, 2020, 05:00:11 PM

A few years back, "we" put together our own computer ranking with help from The Bobs. We started simply and then modified it, over and over, until it more or less matched the AP ranking, at which point we belatedly realized what we had done. (I was the chief culprit here.)

Our goal was to make something that basically reproduced a ranking we already had. I didn't realize that before the fact. So, if you already have a ranking in mind, you could just post that instead of a lot of preliminary jiggering to create that ranking.

I can recall much of what we did, a team got credit for the number of Div 1 wins any team it beat had. We took the square root of point diff. If you beat a team that had 7 wins, you got 0.7 points in addition to a point for the win, and then a function of point diff. I think we added in some further fudge factors .... unwittingly to make it "look right" (e.g., match existing polls).

Cincy, I'm walking you through this preliminary jiggering to show that I have absolutely no ranking in mind. I'd love for Emmitt to be higher, and it's weird that Sanders isn't even on the list, but I'm being transparent here and letting the outcome be whatever it may be. I'm not trying to slant it one way or another, nor am I choosing criteria to aid any particular players.
I'm honestly just trying to make something beefy that purposely doesn't have the confirmation bias all of these things tend to have.

OrangeAfroMan · « **Reply #48 on:** March 10, 2020, 11:35:57 PM »

Quote from: rolltidefan on March 10, 2020, 11:59:53 AM

this list needs a ton of work.

jim brown
rashaan salaam
willis mcgahee
shaun alexander
derrick henry
gale sayers

and completely discounts guys like faulk. i get level of comp is something to take into consideration, but when they also tear up nfl, i think level of comp is moot.

You're wanting to include RBs that are among the general consensus. If we wanted that, we could simply look it up. I want something fresh. Yes, a list with names we wouldn't expect on it is useful. It may even be better than the general consensus!
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Sigh. NFL production. I'm not sure how many ways I can say this - NFL PRODUCTION HAS NO BEARING ON A PLAYER'S COLLEGE MERITS. HIS COLLEGE CAREER IS SEPARATE FROM HIS PRO CAREER. To be fair, I should take the words "better" and "best" and never use them again.
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Let's call this the "100 college RB careers that were the most productive", okay?

Cincydawg · « **Reply #49 on:** March 11, 2020, 08:58:20 AM »

Let's imagine your jiggering generates a very odd looking top ten list, just an example. What do you do then? Jigger some more? Let it ride?

If the latter, you generated an odd looking list that doesn't have much value, I suspect. If you jigger some more to make it appear normal, you're doing what I did.

Of course, it's the off season and the process could be interesting anyway (more than the final outcome).

OrangeAfroMan · « **Reply #50 on:** March 11, 2020, 09:23:08 AM »

I'll let it ride. And no list I formulate is going to have any value - I'm just a guy in the world. This is a meaningless exercise for fun.
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However, people seem to be obsessed with how "good" certain players are, while I tend to care more about production. Who cares how talented a guy is if it doesn't translate to more production?
That's why I started with career yardage - I don't care what a guy might have been capable of doing, I care about what he did. To me, it'll always be the Wuerffel/Manning debate. Manning was preseason All-American 2 or 3 times. Wuerffel was the actual All-American twice because he actually DID more. He didn't have the rocket arm or the famous last name - but he did have the production and the wins (h2h).

MrNubbz · « **Reply #51 on:** March 11, 2020, 09:28:29 AM »

H2H would not mean squat idividually as they would be facing off against different defenses in different offenses

Cincydawg · « **Reply #52 on:** March 11, 2020, 09:52:26 AM »

The "more production" angle is of course more quantitative, less judgment, though "production" is a subjective term also.

If you end up with your top productive running back being "Ernie Smith" from Boise State ....

OrangeAfroMan · « **Reply #53 on:** March 11, 2020, 11:09:04 AM »

Quote from: MrNubbz on March 11, 2020, 09:28:29 AM

H2H would not mean squat idividually as they would be facing off against different defenses in different offenses

Of course, but that didn't stop the media from playing it up.
Guys, any and all frivolous statements here are due to the placation of the masses. Let's just know that and not feel the need to nitpick it every time.

OrangeAfroMan · « **Reply #54 on:** March 11, 2020, 11:15:08 AM »

Quote from: bwarbiany on March 10, 2020, 12:02:31 PM

1996: 325 carries at 6.5 ypc (25 apg)
1997: 263 carries at 5.5 ypc (23.9 apg)
1998: 295 carries at 5.2 ypc (26.8 apg)
1999: 337 carries at 6.0 ypc (28.1 apg)

Here - here you go.
325 carries = 6.5 ypc
1,220 carries = 5.8 ypc
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THIS is the point.

OrangeAfroMan · « **Reply #55 on:** March 11, 2020, 11:32:56 AM »

1. Ricky Williams, Texas
2. Jonathan Taylor, Wisconsin
3. Royce Freeman, Oregon
4. Ron Dayne, Wisconsin
5. LaMichael James, Oregon
6. Tony Dorsett, Pitt
7. Anthony Thompson, Indiana
8. Archie Griffin, Ohio St
9. Cedric Benson, Texas
10. Justin Jackson, Northwestern
11. Myles Gaskin, Washington
12. Charles White, USC
13. Montee Ball, Wisconsin
14. Darren Sproles, Kansas St
15. Melvin Gordon, Wisconsin
16. Ken Simonton, Oregon St
17. Herschel Walker, Georgia
18. George Rogers, South Carolina
19. Mike Rozier, Nebraska
20. Trevor Cobb, Rice
21. Nick Chubb, Georgia
22. Michael Hart, Michigan
23. Dalvin Cook, Florida St
24. Avon Cobourne, West Virginia
25. Darren Lewis, Texas A&M
26. Marcus Allen, USC
27. Ray Rice, Rutgers
28. Paul Palmer, Temple
29. Ted Brown, NC State
30. Lorenzo White, Michigan St
31. J.K. Dobbins, Ohio St
32. Thurman Thomas, OKlahoma St
33. Terry Miller, Oklahoma St
34. Anthony Davis, USC
35. Darren McFadden, Arkansas
36. Ameer Abdullah, Nebraska
37. Kevin Faulk, LSU
38. Darrell Thompson, Minnesota
39. Damien Anderson, Northwestern
40. Jamie Morris, Michigan
41. Eric Dickerson, SMU
42. Bo Jackson, Auburn
43. Earl Campbell, Texas
44. Johnathan Franklin, UCLA
45. Javon Ringer, Michigan St
46. Amos Lawrence, North Carolina
47. Troy Davis, Iowa St
48. Stepfan Taylor, Stanford
49. A.J. Dillon, Boston College
50. Autry Denson, Notre Dame
51. Tyrone Wheatley, Michigan
52. David Thompson, Oklahoma St
53. Noel Devine, West Vriginia
54. Joe Morris, Syracuse
55. Ka'Deem Carey, Arizona
56. Errict Rhett, Florida
57. Samaje Perine, Oklahoma
58. Shock Linwood, Baylor
59. Tico Duckett, Michigan St
60. Allen Pinkett, Notre Dame
61. Zach Line, SMU
62. Kendall Hunter, Oklahoma St
63. Ralph Webb, Vanderbilt
64. Travis Etienne, Clemson
65. Anthony Thomas, Michigan
66. Lamont Jordan, Maryland
67. Byron Hanspard, Texas Tech
68. Rodney Smith, Minnesota
69. Robert Holcombe, Illinois
70. Amos Zereoue, West Virginia
71. Zack Moss, Utah
72. Warrick Dunn, Florida St
73. Dalton Hilliard, LSU
74. James White, Wisconsin
75. James Gray, Texas Tech
76. Joe Washington, Oklahoma
77. Robert Lavette, Georgia Tech
78. Mike Voight, North Carolina
79. Darrin Nelson, Stanford
80. Christian McCaffrey, Stanford
81. Ezekiel Elliott, Ohio St
82. Chris Polk, Washington
83. Laurence Maroney, Minnesota
84. Napoleon Kaufman, Washington
85. Adrian Peterson, Oklahoma
86. Charles Alexander, LSU
87. Chris Barclay, Wake Forest
88. Steve Slaton, West Virignia
89. Thomas Jones, Virginia
90. Anthony Dixon, Miss State
91. Ahman Green, Nebraska
92. Raymond Priester, Clemson
93. P.J. Hill, Wisconsin
94. Steve Owens, Oklahoma
95. Tyrell Sutton, Northwestern
96. Eric Bieniemy, Colorado
97. Bryce Love, Stanford
98. Evan Royster, Penn St
99. Jacquizz Rodgers, Oregon St
100. Emmitt Smith, Florida
----------------------------------
101. Sedrick Shaw, Iowa
102. Yvenson Bernard, Oregon St
103. Saquon Barkley, Penn St
104. Leonard Fournette, LSU
105. Billy Sims, Oklahoma
106. James Davis, Clemson
107. Benny Snell Jr, Kentucky
108. BenJarvis Green-Ellis, Ole Miss
109. Butch Woolfork, Michigan
110. June Henley, Kansas

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Topic: 100 RBs who had lots of carries and didn't stink

betarhoalphadelta

Re: Top 100 RBs of All-Time

OrangeAfroMan

Re: Top 100 RBs of All-Time

betarhoalphadelta

Re: Top 100 RBs of All-Time

Cincydawg

Re: Top 100 RBs of All-Time

OrangeAfroMan

Re: Top 100 RBs of All-Time

OrangeAfroMan

Re: Top 100 RBs of All-Time

OrangeAfroMan

Re: Top 100 RBs of All-Time

Cincydawg

Re: Top 100 RBs of All-Time

OrangeAfroMan

Re: Top 100 RBs of All-Time

MrNubbz

Re: Top 100 RBs of All-Time

Cincydawg

Re: Top 100 RBs of All-Time

OrangeAfroMan

Re: Top 100 RBs of All-Time

OrangeAfroMan

Re: Top 100 RBs of All-Time

OrangeAfroMan

Re: Top 100 RBs of All-Time