Missouri Football: Damarea Crockett isn’t a top SEC running back?
Recent preseason polls rated aspects of the Missouri football and basketball programs. How did running back Damarea Crockett not make the top 5?
The hate train for Missouri continues rolling. Hopefully, every article we publish makes the Tigers’ bulletin board for motivation to prove all the doubters wrong this season.
Even with the second-year starting running back’s suspension at the end of the 2016 season, Crockett still excelled and put up one of the best performances in the SEC.
If he had played the entire season, Crockett would have likely exceeded 1,200 yards on the ground, while sharing the load with junior running back Ish Witter, who carried the ball for a career-high 750 yards.
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Meanwhile, Crockett completed the 2016 season with 1,062 yards on the ground. That alone broke Missouri’s record set by a freshman running back, while also breaking other records.
Missouri’s duo of Crockett and Witter return this fall, and at least one ESPN writer had it right: The Tigers field one of the best backfields in the SEC.
Given that Missouri has one of the SEC’s best backfields, I was disappointed, but not surprised, to see that the Tigers’ main ball carrier received no recognition for his statistical accomplishments, while sharing a large amount of carries with Witter.
Of the five running backs who made the cut, it seems the snub may have come via Alabama’s Bo Scarborough, who carried the ball for 850 yards – 212 yards less than Crockett, and shared the backfield with a 1,000-yard rusher in Damien Harris.
Was the snub because, in total, Mizzou came up 38 total yards short of Alabama? Based on yardage alone, Crockett is a better running back than Scarborough, and is expecting to carry the Tigers on the ground in 2017.
Next: Criticism for Missouri continues
On Wednesday, the basketball program and quarterback Drew Lock was rated the seventh-best in the SEC. I disagree with both ratings, and would venture that the experts could spend a little more time in “Columbia-west.”