Vanderbilt Football: Who is the Commodore's Best?

As we continue to dream of SEC football, we’ll look at each team and tell you who their best player is. Vanderbilt football is up next, and their best player is overlooked too often.

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Each SEC football team has at least a few studs. Whether it be their middle linebacker, corner, wide receiver or quarterback, each fan base has those few guys they can point to and say “he’s that dude.” The question becomes, though, who is the best?

Vanderbilt football doesn’t get a lot of love. Even when they were experiencing unprecedented success under James Franklin, their best players weren’t shown the respect that others around the conference were. Derek Mason’s tenure has seen Vanderbilt win 7 games the last two seasons…combined. Not reaching bowl eligibility and struggling against out of conference competition when you’re an SEC football school doesn’t help your players get noticed, either.

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One Vanderbilt football player does deserve more love than he’s been getting, though. While the offensive line has been atrocious, there has been a quarterback carousel and no wide receivers have stepped up in a major way, one position has remained a consistent positive for Vanderbilt football. That position is running back, due to the underrated Ralph Webb.

If I asked which SEC running back produced over 1,300 yards last season to go with 12 touchdowns, you’d quickly run through the SEC running backs that get the most love. Leonard Fournette, Nick Chubb, Sony Michel, Jalen Hurd and even Alvin Kamara would all likely leave your lips before you got to Ralph Webb. But that’s exactly what the Vanderbilt football star produced last year.

Not only did he go over the 1,000 yard rushing mark with no real passing game to compliment his efforts, he did so while averaging a respectable 4.2 yards a carry. Sure, that figure isn’t astronomical — especially when compared against Leonard Fournette’s 6.5 yards per carry.

I use Fournette becasue he also doesn’t receive much help from the passing game. But are we really going to sit here and pretend the offensive lines for LSU and Vanderbilt football are created equal? No, I didn’t think so.

must read: Power Ranking all 14 SEC Football Teams for 2016

While Vanderbilt football will have to surprise many and reach a bowl game for Ralph Webb to get the love he truly deserves, he’ll undoubtedly remain the best player on the Vanderbilt football team. He isn’t quite in the category of Leonard Fournette and Nick Chubb, but then again how many running backs in the country are. At least half SEC football teams would happily add Webb to their roster and see him become an instant starter. For a team that has only won 7 games the past two seasons, that’s pretty dang good.

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Vanderbilt Football: Who is the Commodore’s Best?

By John Richardson | Aug 11, 2016

As we continue to dream of SEC football, we’ll look at each team and tell you who their best player is. Vanderbilt football is up next, and their best player is overlooked too often.