“But it is a strong indicator of who’s being successful.”
I just gave you nearly 20 examples where it wasn’t. You might be able to get to 20 examples of Michigan RBs who WERE ranked correctly by YPC, but the count comparison is going to be close.
It’s an OK indicator, but it’s not a great one. At least not until you get at least 50 carries or so because the rest can just be ascribed to context. In other words you need some apples to apples data to compare apples to apples performance results.
Smith average 4.8 yards last year and 4.5 yards the year before. Mike Hart averaged 5.0 for his career, 4.4 his soph year, and 4.9 his junior year. Thomas averaged 4.8 ypc and 4.4 his junior year. I don’t see anything to complain about. You can nitpick numbers after 3 games if you want but it seems silly. All these guys are in a very similar range and I would strongly argue that Hart and Thomas had much better OLs.
Smith, like any back, is generally going to get more yards against bad competition than he gets against good competition. Utah is very good competition. We’re basically down to complaining that he didn’t get enough yards against UNLV. Come on.
Your freshman critique is valid and it isn’t. Freshman numbers are often used to make arguments for guys to see more playing time, and I think rightfully so for RBs. What we WANT to see from a freshman is some time as a backup RB (hopefully to a very good upperclassmen) wherein he is productive in non-meaningful situations. That’s an opportunity for said guy to show his stuff, get his feat wet, and get us excited for the future. Fitz Toussaint, chris Perry and many others have flashed some talent in those spots, but still had to refine their games. Nothing definitive, but those kind of stats in garbage time should be good. The bigger issue is sample size, by far.
As for Thomas specifically — he was who he was from the gate and he played an extensive role as a freshman 130 carries, 21 receptions). I don’t think he really got better as a ballcarrier to be honest, he just got more carries and got better at the non-ball-carrying stuff. He had 4.1 ypc his freshman year and 4.4 ypc his junior year. We’re not talking about a guy who changed that dramatically, so including his freshman year is fair IMO.
