John Adams: The SEC will be running strong in 2017
Alabama’s Najee Harris was one of this SEC’s most acclaimed signees Wednesday. How fitting that he’s a running back.
It’s only February, but it’s not too early to declare 2017 as “The Year of the Runner” in the SEC.
The league’s top five rushers return. So do 13 of the top 14, including 10 who rushed for more than 1,000 yards last season.
The biggest challenge of the preseason might be picking All-SEC running backs.
Start with LSU’s Derrius Guice, who began the 2016 season as a backup to Leonard Fournette and finished as the conference’s leading rusher. In his first season as a starter, he became only the fourth player in SEC history with multiple games of 250 yards or more rushing.
Arkansas’ Rawleigh Williams wasn’t as spectacular as Guice but rushed for only 27 fewer yards. Vanderbilt’s Ralph Webb already has three seasons of more than 900 yards rushing even though the program has lacked a complementary passing game.
Auburn will return Kamryn Pettway and Kerryon Johnson, who combined for 2,119 yards rushing.
Georgia’s running game got an unexpected boost when both Nick Chubb and Sony Michel decided to return for their senior season.
Chubb already has 3,424 career yards rushing, and 1,130 of those yards came last season in his return from a serious knee injury. Michel has 2,411 career rushing yards, including just over 2,000 the past two seasons.
Georgia’s potent one-two running punch is one of the biggest reasons it will be favored to win the SEC East in 2017.
Alabama might surpass that tandem, though.
The Tide’s two leading rushers this past season were Damien Harris (1,040 yards) and quarterback Jalen Hurts (954). But that’s misleading. By the end of the season, Bo Scarbrough was carrying the running game.
Scarbrough finished with 812 yards rushing. He’s one of four Alabama players returning who rushed for more than 500 yards.
Now, you can add Harris to that foursome. While Alabama is renowned for sending running backs to the NFL under coach Nick Saban, some recruiting evaluators think Harris could be the best running back he has signed. That’s high praise considering that Saban already has had two Heisman Trophy running backs, Mark Ingram and Derrick Henry.
Tennessee also boosted its running game on signing day. Ty Chandler is one of the highest rated running backs in the class and figures to contribute right away as a backup to John Kelly, who rushed for 630 yards in 2016 despite beginning the season third on the depth chart. Kelly is a likely candidate to hit a 1,000 yards next season.
UT’s running game could get another boost if redshirt freshman quarterback Jarrett Guarantano wins the starting job.
The best running quarterback in the conference is Mississippi State’s Nick Fitzgerald, who rushed for 1,375 yards as a sophomore. He wasn’t the only first-time starter to run his way into prominence. Three SEC freshmen – Kentucky’s Benny Snell Jr., Missouri’s Damarea Crockett and Texas A&M’s Trayveon Williams – rushed for more than 1,000 yards.
With that kind of young talent, 2018 could be the year of the runner, too.
John Adams is a senior columnist. He may be reached at 865-342-6284 or john.adams@knoxnews.com. Follow him at: Twitter.com/johnadamskns.