Notre Dame Football: 5 reasons Josh Adams is nation’s best running back

5. Look no further than the stats

For those who can’t watch every single game of the college football season, statistics are the next best way to determine the quality of a particular player. For Adams, the numbers are clearly in his favor. One of the best ways to measure a running back’s effectiveness is through the yards per carry category.

The Logic

When looking at the top 20 players in the YPC category, Adams just makes the list at number 20. Due to the nature of the YPC stat’s inability to account for minimal attempts, the following players were removed due to lack of sample size:

Ty Johnson (Maryland)- 17 carries; 15.1 YPC
Darrel Henderson (Memphis)- 26 carries; 10.5 YPC
Travis Homer (Miami)- 11 carries; 9.8 YPC
Malik Williams (Louisville)- 19 carries; 9.7 YPC
Jamarius Henderson (Troy)- 20 carries; 9.5 YPC
Tavien Feaster (Clemson)- 19 carries; 9.3 YPC
Mark Walton (Miami)- 16 carries; 9.3 YPC
Chris Warren (Texas)- 26 carries; 8.2 YPC
Stephen Carr (USC)- 27 carries; 8.0 YPC

The next step was to weed out those who were clearly the beneficiaries of a weak schedule. Those players included Lexington Thomas of UNLV (vs. Howard and Idaho; 9.0 YPC) and Jeffrey Wilson of North Texas (vs. Lamar, SMU, Iowa; 8.3 YPC).

Next, those who haven’t had the chance or have failed to prove the ability to sustain success were taken off the list. These players included freshmen Trey Ragas of Louisiana-Lafayette (9.8 YPC) and Jonathan Taylor of Wisconsin (8.3 YPC).

In addition, quarterbacks Brian Lewerke (Michigan State), Jalen Hurts (Alabama), and Dalton Sturm (Texas-San Antonio) were also removed. These removals left the following players standing: Bryce Love of Stanford, Rashaad Penny of San Diego State, and Saquon Barkley of Penn State.

Conclusion

While Love’s 12.2 YPC is hard to beat, Adams has faced much stiffer competition in Temple, Georgia, and Boston College than Love has in Rice, USC and San Diego State. Adams has run for 136 more yards than the Heisman hopeful Barkley, and what he lacks for in rushing behind Penny he more than makes up for in pass-blocking and route running.

While comparing these players to each other is not that simple, it still goes to show that Adams can hang around with, if not beat out the rest of the competition statistically. We will go deeper into the reasoning behind the above statements in the following slides.