Benson was waived by the Bears

BoomerMcSooner, it wasn't the Texas fans that voted for him to get the doak Walker award. Plus, you can't take away a players best year to try to make an argument.
 
More to the point on Benson's average-ness...

If I was picking my dream lineup of Mack Brown players, my choices for running back would be:

1. Ricky Willlams
2. Jammal Charles
3. Cedric Benson
4. Selvin Young
5. Ramonce Taylor
6. Hodges Mitchell

If you told me that Texas' starting running back would go 1053 yards on 223 carries, or 1293 on 305 carries, I'd say that's below average performance. This is right on par with Hodges Mitchell who in 2000 did 1118 yards on 224 carries. The fact is, Cedric Benson got better while at Texas, and was a much better player as a senior than as a freshman.

For his first two seasons, Benson was no better than Hodges Mitchell as a senior, and nowhere near as good as Ricky Williams was before that. But Benson got bigger and stronger in college.

Speed merchants like Jammal Charles and to a lesser extent, Selvin Young, were explosive homerun hitters right from the get go. I think it likely that Selvin could have likely done better as a freshman and sophmore than Benson given the same situation. But I'm quite sure that Jammal Charles would have done even better...If they could stay healthy...

Benson's greatest talent was his durability. And as he grew bigger and stronger, he matured from an average back (below average by Texas standards) into an excellent back by anyone's standard.
 
So if Benson "matured" into an excellent running back by anyone's standard, why are you calling him an "average" college back? I'm not even sure I agree with you that there was much maturing going on, but more a case of underuse early on followed by a series of nagging injuries that plagued him until his senior season, along with a change of scheme and the emergence of Vince Young as a threat.

By your own admission, he became "excellent"; ergo, he was an excellent college running back.
 
You can't compare Ivan Williams to Benson. I loved Ivan Williams, and if not for injuries he may have been able to find himself on an NFL roster as a fullback. Great hands for a big guy.

Durability is the key. Speed, strength, ability don't mean as much if you can't carry the ball 25 times a game. There is a skill and toughness to it. No knock on him, but that's something Ivan couldn't do, and what a lot of other backs couldn't do.

As a running back you have to keep the entire defense honest. Much like how a good passing game supplements a good running game, a back who can hit the edges and outside as well as he does the interior forces the defense to remain disciplined to a certain degree. There's 9 in the box, and there's really 9 in the box. A back like Ivan couldn't get that edge, and Benson while not a speed burner, made the defense play every gap at the college level. He was good enough for that. The guys here who neglect that want to rant about speed and ability. Go jack off to youtube highlights with linkin park playing in the background if that's your thing. Results matter, and he produced.

I can't believe I'm defending the guy, because I'm not a Benson fan. But his career in college is what it is.
 
sooner,
benson was excellent his freshman year so what the hell are you talking about.
and you are one of the guys on this thread who says he is #6 all time because of his durability. what a pile of ****.
it was more his desire to play and play hard. many backs would have sat out that entire sophmore season. he had the nagging stinger and a pretty bad turf toe.
his junior season was a team that only found its identity later in the season - when roy wiliams became a blocker and we started to excel with the zone read.
some of you are just looking up stats and not remembering circumstances. especially the "he never had a big game in a big game" and "he was durable (though oft injured) and started (no he didn't) for 4 years" crowd.
 
“I'm not saying Benson was an "average college running back", I'm saying that over his whole career he was an average starting Texas running back of the Mack Brown era.”

That’s a fairly meaningless statement, considering the quality of running backs Mack Brown has had here. (It IS untrue, though, if you include the guys who didn’t hold on to the starting job: Kenny Hayter, Victor Ike, Ivan Williams)

It’s not at all unreasonable to list Charles ahead of Benson—the guy led the league in rushing (by a long shot) last year and would have been a heisman frontrunner this year.

I do take issue with the way you characterize Hodges Mitchell as some sort of example of mediocrity: he was 1st team all conference in both 1999 and 2000. In (basically) two years of play he cracked our top 10 all-time rushing list. I don’t think you can say that’s “below the level you’d expect Texas to put on the field”. We’re Texas and all, but even we don’t expect ALL of our running backs to be Earl Campbell or Ricky Williams.

Also, I’m not sure it’s fair to compare Mitchell’s junior and senior years to Benson’s freshman year—which was, statistically, the best freshman year of any running back in UT history.
 
"As good as Hodges Mitchell was, he wasn't an NFL-quality player. "

Right, because he was 5'7" and blew out his ACL in his last game. As you said, he was a great college player, though. So we're arguing that Cedric, as a freshman, was already about on par with a "great college player" and that, by his senior year, he was far better than that?

"Looking over Mack Brown's tenure, '99-'02 is the low point in terms of having a stud running back."

Again, that may be true, but it doesn't tell us anything about Cedric's place all-time among running backs or even UT backs. Mack Brown's tenure has been pretty exceptional. The average UT running back isn't Earl or Ricky, or even Hodges, just like the average OU back isn't Adrian Peterson or Billy Sims, or even Quentin Griffin.
 
I always thought of Cedric as a very good, not "great," RB when he played for us. To be honest, however, I thought he'd do really well in the NFL, where it seems the really successful backs are around 5-11, 225 power runners, guys who run low & keep moving forward (e.g. Emmit Smith, Priest Holmes, LaDanian Tomlinson).

His failures so far are off-field, but Ced's still a good player. If he gets his act together, he could still have a decent NFL career before injuries take their toll (around age 28).
 
Fans that really understand the game can appreciate a hard nose runner. Some of you guys look at if the player was flashy and that is all you know. Cedric was an in between the tackles runner just like Charles is more of outside the tackle runner. Yes both backs did run to the outside or the inside in Charles case, but because of their style they are totally different. Cedric runs north and south and is not flashy at all. Sorry that he's not as exciting to watch for those guys that think a player has to run 20 yards with about 4 moves to get 4 yards.

But if you really understand the game and have even played the position you would appreciate the toughness Cedric brought to the running game. He always goes forward and tires out the defenses.

Charles or any other RB's 4 yards is no different than the 4 yards cedric would get. It's comical that you really do think a player is just average if he's not flashy.
 
now i've heard it all. q griffin was on par with cedric benson?
the fact that you don't consider it an excellent season to rush for over a thousand yards and score 12 touchdowns - as a true freshman - is utterly stupid. then you and others list c. portis, who i don't think even matched thos totals one time.

you suck at this thread.
 
Benson was listed at 200 pounds as a high school senior, and 216 pounds by the Chicago Bears. It's not like he exploded. His weight gain was very typical for a running back.
 
could Ced ever be counted on to take over a game? Like Ricky vs. Baylor that year? "We're up against a wall so we're gonna hand it to this badass and you can't stop it" kind of game takeover?

I can't remember that happening.
 
Hey Ced, I still think your a hell of a player and I hope you find a new home soon. You got your best years ahead of you. We all make mistakes most of us don't have to see them plastered all over the media and have total strangers (hypocrites) saying how stupid we are.

Keep your head up you have a great opportunity to show everybody what your made of.
hookem.gif
 
sooner,
answer this simple wquestion. if you don't consider 1000+ yards and 12 touchdowns excellent - true freshman or not - how can you list clinton portis as being a better back than cedric benson, being that he never even matched those numbers (not even as a junior)? so cedric was better as a true freshman than portis as a junior, but portis is better?
 
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