Who Should Be Penn State's Third String RB?

The press seems to be leaning towards Brandon Beachum, but is that justified?

Whoever follows Penn State football knows that barring injuries, the starting RBs will be the starting RBs of last year, Evan Royster and Stephfon Green. Each did a superb job and there is no question there.

The question is, what if one RB gets hurt? Who should we put in? Let's analyze. There are four other players that had rushing stats in 2008. They are: Chaz Powell (9.8 ypc (yards per carry)), Brent Carter (5.9 ypc), Brandon Beachum (4.1 ypc) and Joe Suhey  (2.9 ypc), listed in order of average yards per carry. Chaz Powell would be the odds-on favorite, but he is listed as a WR and probably will be DW's replacement. Joe Suhey has one-third of the carries of Carter and Beachm, and the lowest ypc. So we can pretty much argue that it should be between Carter and Beachm.

The real worth of a RB is how he does against the better teams. Any decent RB can run up his statistics against a Coastal Carolina; therefore, we shouldn't count last-place Indiana and all of the non-conference games.

There is a question: should we include Oregon State? Since we scored 45 points against them, I decided to drop them, too. In 2008, Carter got hurt just as the regular season started, so his 5.9 ypc means nothing to us. We have to go back to 2007. 

In 2007, he gained two ypc against Wisconsin (W) and 7.7 ypc against Michigan State (L), (counting carries), an average of 4.4. Beachum has only 2008 to use and has 2.7 ypc against Wisconsin(W) and -1 ypc against Michigan State (W) (counting carries), an average of 1.4. Carter was hurt, but should be okay by the start of the season. They are both sophomores.

Now the choice is not easy, but I think Carter should be the third string RB on opening day because he has more experience, more carries (not by a lot) and a better ypc average against decent teams.

There is an intangible!

In 2007, we were losing to Michigan State and a touchdown at the end of the game would have given us the game. Carter ran three times for 23 yards. The powers that be then switched to passing and time ran out. I firmly believe that we could have won it if we had kept with Brent.