« Injuries hit a couple 5-2A teams | Main | District 9-A predictions »
Workhorses lead to playoff berths
August 17, 2008Like the high school athletes going through two-a-days right now, I am starting to pick up my high school football blog production.
Today, we will look at some real workhorses.
I was writing my last football preview (Yeah!!) and looked up the stats for Henrietta quarterback Seth Crumpton.
Crumpton ended up carrying the football 265 times last year as a junior, or slightly more than 22 attempts a game for the 7-5 Bearcats.
That is a lot of pounding for one guy to take. So I decided to look at how many other rushers have averaged more than 20 carries a game since 2003.
Full disclosure here -- I only looked up regular season stats, because I don't have a football database for postseason stats. Here were the workhorses:
2007: *Seth Crumpton, Henrietta (22.08); Tevin Mitchell, Quanah (20.6).
2006: NONE.
2005: Nate Brown, Burkburnett (25.7); Alton Gary, Jacksboro (22.0).
2004: Major Henderson, Bowie (21.1); Colin Leggett, Holliday (21.1).
2003: Trey Edwards, Henrietta (21.9).
*only stats that include postseason
As you can see, there have only been seven guys that broke the 20-carry mark over the past five years. And six of these seven guys played for teams that made the postseason.
That is not too much of a surprise since winning teams usually run the ball more with a lead, thus giving tailbacks more attempts.
Brown's Bulldogs are the only ones who missed out. Gary, Henderson and Edwards' teams were all one-and-done.
Last year, Crumpton and Mitchell played on squads who won the bi-district matchup, then lost the next week. Leggett's Eagles had the most success, making a run all the way to the state quarterfinals.
And another side note: Crumpton is the only QB on this list. The rest are running backs.
Posted by at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
