Ole Miss' Kewan Lacy Is The Best Running Back In College Football Who Nobody Seems To Want To Talk About
Kewan Lacy deserves much more recognition than he's getting.
There is not a more overlooked, yet certifiably elite skill position player in all of college football than Ole Miss running back Kewan Lacy. That sentence may be hard to rationalize given that it involves a 10-1 Ole Miss team one win away from hosting a College Football Playoff game next month, at worst, but the numbers and the lack of chatter involving Lacy's name back up the sentiment.
Lacy, a sophomore who spent his freshman season at Missouri, has been an absolute menace in the backfield for the Rebels and a nightmare for defenders.
The Dallas native leads the nation in touchdowns among running backs with 19, three more than the next player on that list, and broke Ole Miss' single-season touchdown record with his three-touchdown performance against Florida. With 114 points to his name this year, Lacy has also broken the single-season school record by a non-kicker.
Lacy has rushed for at least 100 yards five times this season, which includes a 224-yard outing in his team's 34-24 win over the Gators. With one regular-season game left on Ole Miss' slate, Lacy is third in the nation in rushing yards with 1,136 while being tied with Oregon State's Anthony Hankerson for the most rushing attempts with 231 on the year.
Kewan Lacy celebrating at Ole Miss. (Ayrton Breckenridge/Clarion Ledger / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
Lacy's more advanced statistics aren't too bad either. When it comes to running backs with at least 150 rush attempts, his 3.53-yard average of yards after contact per attempt put him 10th in the nation. His expected points added average of 14.22 — a good metric of his impact as a rusher as it relates to his team — puts him ninth in the country among that same group of running backs.
Yes, the expected suspects of Notre Dame's Jeremiyah Love, Missouri's Ahmad Hardy, and Jacksonville State's Cam Cook have Lacy beat in those two specific categories, but the numbers he has put up while being Ole Miss' workhorse are mighty impressive.
Kewan Lacy And The Heisman Trophy Talk
Some might even say Lacy's numbers and the fact that he's on a 10-1 team make his resume worth bringing up in Heisman Trophy discussions. Yet, that isn't the case, not even as of November 18, the day he was announced as a semifinalist for the Doak Walker Award given to the nation's top running back.
Nothing better represents Lacy not being mentioned in Heisman Trophy discussion than the fact that many major sports books don't even have his name listed as a candidate you can place a wager on. Most sportsbooks offer options to bet on players with odds of +40,000, but Lacy hasn't even managed to make that cut.
By no means do I think Lacy should be a front-runner to win the Heisman this season, but to ignore him altogether feels like a disservice.
The obvious question here is why? Why isn't Lacy getting the level of recognition his performances and statistics represent?
Kewan Lacy and Lane Kiffin in Oxford. Mandatory Credit: Petre Thomas-Imagn Images
Lane Kiffin Likes To Run The Football, Believe It Or Not
The answer has to do with Lane Kiffin and the fact that many in the media cling to old, now incorrect narratives.
With Kiffin being crowned as the one who moved Nick Saban away from old-school, smash-mouth football during his time as the offensive coordinator at Alabama earlier in his career, he's picked up this reputation of being a coach who likes to throw the football 40+ times per game.
This couldn't be further from the truth. Ole Miss has rushed the ball 453 times this season, which is tied with Mississippi State for the most rush attempts in the SEC and is tied for fourth in the nation if you remove Army, Air Force, and Navy from the equation.
People simply see Kiffin, see that Ole Miss scores plenty of points, and assume it's a fast-paced, pass-first offense, not realizing there is an All-American level running back doing most of the heavy lifting.
Without Lacy this Ole Miss team simply does not own a 10-1 record at this point in the season. He is unquestionably the most valuable player on the Rebels' roster, and given where the team finds itself in the national landscape heading into Thanksgiving, it may be time to start talking about the man in the backfield.