Like with the quarterbacks, championships talk. They’re louder than records, though records do matter. Standout moments matter too. Ezekiel Elliott breaking Bama’s hearts. Maurice Clarett taking the football away from Sean Taylor. Beanie Wells breaking free against That Team Up North.
TreVeyon Henderson taking a screen to the house against Texas. Championships, records, and moments that live forever make up the top ten Buckeye running backs of the last 25 years.
1. Ezekiel Elliott
If Heisman Trophy voting happened after the postseason, Zeke is your 2014 Heisman winner as well as 2014 National Champion. In the final four games of 2014 against that team up north, Wisconsin, Alabama, and Oregon, Elliott had 871 yards and ten touchdowns.
Even without the Heisman, Elliott is the most talented, most accomplished, and most winning running back Ohio State has had since Archie Griffin, hands down. If the offensive coordinators in 2015 don’t keep the ball away from him in the second half against MSU, he would have back-to-back national titles and the Heisman from that year, too. Elliott would finish his career where he started, only two seasons with 592 carries for 3,961 yards and 58 touchdowns.
2. Maurice Clarett
Clarett would only play one season at Ohio State, after which his fall would happen as quickly as his rise (and luckily, we’ve seen his redemption story, too). But his impact in that one season was meteoric, and he only played in 11 of Ohio State’s 14 games and left a couple more with an injured shoulder that plagued him in 2002.
Mighty Mo would have 222 carries for 1,237 yards and 16 touchdowns on the ground with 12 catches for 104 yards and two touchdowns receiving. Clarett would have two touchdowns and the most important forced fumble and recovery in Buckeye history against Miami in the Fiesta Bowl, as the Bucks would go 14-0 and win the National Championship.
Clarett’s journey was rocky, but his redemption has been more than admirable and allows him and Buckeye Nation to look at his year at Ohio State as the special one it was.
3. TreVeyon Henderson
Ohio State isn’t the 2024 National Champions without this man. He took care of the rock for four years like no one else. He had 667 rushes and catches, and he never fumbled the football once. He had 4,614 yards and 48 touchdowns at Ohio State and was the best rushing and receiving dual threat since Curtis Samuel.
He averaged a touchdown and nearly 100 total yards a game for 47 games across four seasons, and he capped it all off with the greatest postseason run in college football history. In the playoffs, he had 409 total yards on 44 touches and scored five touchdowns to win the national title for the Buckeyes.