Death, taxes and an Arkansas player being snubbed from an award. These are life’s only guarantees.
The Doak Walker Award is given out annually to the best running back in college football, and the semifinalists for this year’s award were announced this morning.
The list included some very talented and deserving running backs like Chase Brown (Illinois), who leads the nation in rushing, and freshman running back Quinshon Judkins (Ole Miss), who leads the SEC in rushing and just went for 214 yards against Arkansas.
When looking at the list of names, though, there’s one name missing, and his exclusion is baffling. That name is none other than Arkansas running back Raheim “Rocket” Sanders.
Sanders is currently second in rushing yards in the SEC, the toughest conference in the country, and eighth in the country overall with 1,379 rushing yards this season. That’s more rushing yards than Israel Abanikanda (Pitt), Zach Charbonnet (UCLA), Kendre Miller (TCU) and Deuce Vaughn (Kansas State) who all made the semifinalists list.
He’s also coming off of a career game where he had 232 yards rushing and three touchdowns against the 14th ranked team in the country.
The argument could be made that team success is a factor, but UAB’s Dewayne McBride made the cut, and the Blazers are only 5-6. Minnesota and Pittsburgh are both 7-4 on the year and had representatives, despite playing a much easier schedules than the Hogs.
One possible issue is that touchdowns might hold more weight than anything else. Sanders has 10 touchdowns this season, which is only more than Illinois’ Chase Brown (9) and Kansas State’s Deuce Vaughn (6).
Regardless, Sanders deserves the recognition and it’s a huge oversight to leave his name off. The one silver lining is that Sanders is only a sophomore, so he’ll have at least one more season at Arkansas to go after the award.
Darren McFadden is the only Razorback to win the Doak Walker Award, winning in 2006 and 2007, and is one of just three players to ever win the award more than once.
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