This past football season the state of Alabama had arguably two of the top three running backs in the SEC showcasing their talents each Saturday. While one has let his talk come from his field of play and awards he won, the other one has let his mouth do the talking along with his play on the field. Of course, I am talking about the University of Alabama's Mark Ingram and Auburn University's Ben Tate.
Ben Tate all football season has said that he was the best running back in the state. The Maryland native has also gone on and said he is the most complete running back in the NFL draft. In an interview this morning on ESPN's program First Take ESPN's Jay Crawford asked Ben Tate to grade his NFL Draft Combine.
Ben Tate said," an A or an A-"
If you do not know about how well Ben Tate preformed at the combine then you would be shocked to hear this. He was in the top three in the major four catergories: Bench Press, 26 reps (T-1st), 40 yard dash, 4.43 (3rd), Broad Jump, 10' 04" (1st) and Vertical Jump, 40 1/2, which was also ranked in the top 3 of all running backs. What makes this all impressive is his 220 lb frame. This is rare to see a big back to have these types of numbers.
Mark Ingram did not have much to say this past season on how good he was. He just let everyone judge for themselves. His hard nose running style was not over looked by most of the media who voted him the Heisman trophy winner. He became the third sophomore in as many years to win the award. The Michigan native is not one who is flashy about how he runs instead of missing people he wants to run them over. This was evident in the South Carolina game this past season when he racked up over 240 yards of rushing.
But how can one determine who is the better running back of the two? Both are pretty much the same style runner with Tate being a little more flashy than Ingram.
In the Iron Bowl, both of them had horrible performances, where both of them combine for 34 carries and only could muster 75 yards...that is only 2.2 yards per carry on average. So, you can not really determine the Iron Bowl as the factor on who is better, now on to common opponents.
Auburn and Alabama has six common opponents this past season: Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and LSU. Ben Tate rushed for 812 yards and Mark Ingram rushed for 754 yards against these teams. If you go by this then you would have to give the edge to Ben Tate. But if you look at the carries each guy got in these six games you would notice that Ben Tate attempted 141 versus Mark Ingrams 126, so you could factor that into the equation. When you break the numbers down and average the attempts and yards then Ingram wins by .2 having a 5.9 yards per carry against Tate's 5.7, so again not much difference there.
If you look at each best games then Ingram would win by a landslide with his 246 yards against South Carolina, Tate's biggest game was 184 against Arkansas. One last factor you could include is how much focal point did the opposing team put on each player. Ingram was undoubtedly the focal point of every defense who played against Alabama this past season. While Auburn's offense was a little more pass happy due to Gus Malzans philosophy.
Overall each guy could make a case about being the best running back in the state and it is how you view the numbers and each guys worth to his team but if I had to say which of the two backs is the best I would give the nod the Mark Ingram, He did win the Heisman after all.
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