 |
| Chris Perry |
The 2014 Doak Walker Award watch list was released on Thursday morning. The award is given to the nation’s top running back. Chris Perry (2003) is the lone Wolverine to have won the award. There are a number of players of interest on the list:
Ameer Abdullah – RB – Nebraska
Bill Belton – RB – Penn State*
Marcus Cox – RB – Appalachian State
Josh Ferguson – RB – Illinois
Melvin Gordon – RB – Wisconsin*
Johnathan Gray – RB – Texas*
Bronson Hill – RB – Eastern Michigan#
Jeremy Langford – RB – Michigan State
Jonathan Williams – RB – Arkansas*
Zach Zwinak – RB – Penn State
*Offered by Michigan
#Eastern Michigan!
You need to login in order to vote
Langford had one major D1 offer, Colorado prior to Sparty offering him late. Now he turns into Doak Walker contender. Why can't U-M ever do that??
You need to login in order to vote
Probably because that's very hard to do. However, Michigan did take a lightly regarded recruit and turn him into Jake Ryan.
You need to login in order to vote
And a walk-on by the name of Jordan Kovacs.
It brings up a question that's perhaps been answered before — of all the position groups, which one is the most difficult to assess before the D1 level? In other words, which group has the highest incidence of 5-stars not living up to their ranking … or the flip side of that: which group has the most number of sleepers that blossom into studs?
You need to login in order to vote
David Molk won the Rimington Award. Although he was more heavily recruited than Langford with offers from several Big Ten programs and a few other random schools, he actually won the award versus just being named to the preseason list. As Thunder points out, Jake Ryan's on a bunch and Frank Clark's on a few, although I'm more confident Jake will stay in the running longer.
You need to login in order to vote
Being on an awards watch list does not mean a ton. Zwinak averaged 4.7 ypc and did not reach 1000 yards last year. I like Langford and think he was a great find for them, but is not getting anywhere near the Doak Walker trophy at 4.9 ypc either.
You need to login in order to vote
Once we land Jacques Patrick and Mikey Weber, we will have 2 candidates.
You need to login in order to vote