The three finalists for the Doak Walker Award were released Tuesday night. The most interesting thing is that all three hail from the Big Ten Conference. They are Nebraska's Ameer Abdullah, Indiana's Tevin Coleman, and Wisconsin's Melvin Gordon.
Ameer Abdullah is playing through an injury he suffered against Purdue. He hasn't been the same yet he still ran for 98 yards on the ground on 20 carries for a 4.9 yard average against a very good Minnesota defense. He is also small at 5-foot 9 yet he plays bigger than his frame, willing to take the hits. Abdullah's statistics this season are as follows: 1417 yards on 224 rushing attempts for a 6.3 average yards per carry with 18 touchdowns, and 195 receiving yards on 14 attempts, including a 58-yard game winning touchdown in week 2. He also has more rushing touchdowns this season with two guaranteed games still to play than Mark Ingram did over the course of the national championship and Heisman winning season for Alabama in 2009, as well as the yards per carry average, where Ingram only had 17 rushing touchdowns and 6.12 yards per carry.
Tevin Coleman is playing on one of the worst teams in the country and he is often getting overlooked as a result of being in a uni-dimensional offense. He is one of the most adept runners in the country, average 7.9 yards per carry on the season and totaling 1906 yards on the ground through 11 games. Indiana is not bowl eligible, which makes his numbers that much more impressive, considering that they came in a smaller number of games. Coleman has ten games of over 100 yards on the ground, where he had 71 yards in his only non-100 yard rushing game. He is one of two running backs with four 200-yard games as well as one 300-yard game. He puts up numbers week in and week out.
Melvin Gordon is the beneficiary of one of the best offensive lines in the country and he makes the best use of it compared to any running back in college football. Like Coleman, Gordon has only one non-100 yard game, where he was recovering from a hip injury in a game against LSU that he ran for 140 yards on 16 carries for an 8.75 yards per carry average. Gordon has proven that he can win a game by himself this season, with performances like last Saturday against Iowa, and especially the game against Nebraska the week before. He has the most rushing yards from scrimmage this season with 2109 yards, tying Ron Dayne's Big Ten record, yet still has two games to go, plus the Big Ten Championship if Wisconsin can defeat Minnesota on Saturday. Gordon also has the highest yards per carry average in the FBS at 8.8, which is a good yard and two thirds above the current FBS record for the season. Just like Tevin Coleman, Gordon puts up the numbers weekly. But Melvin Gordon plays on a team that still has an outside shot at the playoff.
The winner will be announced at the Home Depot College Football Awards show in Orlando on December 11.
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