Remember the supposed torn rib cartilage that hindered Mark Barron down the stretch in the 2011 season? Apparently what Barron was playing through was just a tad bit more serious than Nick Saban and others let on. Per CBS Sports:

Alabama safety Mark Barron will not be able to participate in the upcoming Scouting Combine after undergoing a double-hernia surgery, NFLDraftScout.com has confirmed.

There had been speculation at the Senior Bowl that Barron had been unable to participate in the event due to a pre-existing medical condition. Complicating matters is that Barron may not be sufficiently healed or in the shape he'll want to be when Alabama holds their Pro Day March 7.

The big story here in the short-term is that the injury and the subsequent surgery will cause Barron to miss the NFL Combine and perhaps even Alabama's Pro Day next month, but for the most part I'd venture to say this will ultimately cost him little. He will still be regarded as the top safety in the draft, and with obvious size and athleticism and four years worth of game film available of him going up against high-end competition, I doubt this does anything to meaningfully lower his draft stock. The greater issue he will ultimately fight through, as was the case before the injury, is that the safety position just isn't one of the big money positions in the NFL -- such as quarterback, left tackle, wide receiver, defensive end and cornerback -- so even the best players at the position tend to fall down the board into the latter stages of the first round.

NFL future notwithstanding, Barron deserves a hell of a lot of credit for playing through the pain and continuing to perform at such a high level. It was apparent by mid-season that something was hindering him, and when he missed most of the second half of the Auburn game it was obvious that he was playing in a lot of pain. The long layoff between the Iron Bowl and the BCS Championship Game certainly helped things, I'm sure, but clearly that was no long-term fix and even so he went out and played one of his best games in his Alabama finale down in New Orleans.

On a larger note on the subject, a moment of recognition is in order for several others on the 2011 'Bama defense that did something similar. Outside of Barron, Josh Chapman was playing on a torn ACL, Jesse Williams with a bum shoulder, DeQuan Menzie and DeMarcus Milliner with hamstring injuries, Courtney Upshaw with an elbow injury that required the equivalent of a mattress as a protective wrap, and on and on and on. While efforts are made to make the game safer, the harsh truth of the matter is that it is nevertheless a dangerous, physically draining game and at some point its simply inevitable that you have to play through the pain and yet still find away to perform at a high level. The on-field performance by the defense was impressive enough, but what several went through just to stay on the field was perhaps even more so.

The NCAA Football Rules Committee proposed a number of rule changes today, one of which could have a major impact on special teams. Per a press release from the NCAA, the basic outline of the proposal follows below:

Kickoff and Touchback Starting Lines Moved. The committee voted to move the kickoff to the 35-yard line (currently set at the 30-yard line), and to require that kicking team players must be no further than five yards from the 35 at the kick, which is intended to limit the running start kicking teams have during the play. The committee also voted to move the touchback distance on free kicks to the 25-yard line instead of the 20-yard line to encourage more touchbacks. NCAA data indicates injuries during kickoffs occur more often than in other phases of the game.

This proposal is ultimately a safety measure more than anything else. Kickoff returns are widely considered the single most dangerous play in all of football, and by having more of these plays result in uncontested touchbacks than trainwreck type collisions between twenty-two players, the idea is that the game will be safer for all involved. Moving the kickoff line up will result in more touchbacks, and moving the ball further down the field following a touchback will give return units a greater incentive to kneel on the ball in the end zone instead of bringing it out, so the thinking here is that the rule changes on both ends will work to limit the overall number of returns.

Many have jumped off the deep end since the news of this broke, with some claiming it would end special teams as we know it. That may be a bit of hyperbole -- placekicking and punting remain the same, and returns and out-of-bounds kicks would occur, even if less frequently -- though admittedly it would be a big change. This isn't exactly Greg Schiano's suggestion of eliminating kickoffs entirely, but it does move the rules in that direction.

Safety issues notwithstanding, for Alabama this would be a welcomed change. 'Bama has fared well enough on kickoff returns, but kickoff return defense has often featured breakdown after breakdown and lack of distance in kickoffs has been a major problem for many years now and on net 'Bama would gain with just about any rule change that reduces the importance of special teams. Raw improvement would be nice, but for the time being I'll take Bill Polian's old strategy: Why worry about getting better when you can just get the rules changed instead?

Having said that, though, don't take this one as a panacea just yet. Last year Cade Foster kicked off 81 times and only recorded five touchbacks with an average kickoff length of just 63.3 yards. In other words, barring improvement from Foster or a much better showing by Adam Griffith, 'Bama will still find touchbacks few and far between next season and will still be forced to effectively cover kicks on a consistent basis.

In any event, all rule change proposals must still be approved by the Playing Rules Oversight Panel, and member schools will be able to comment on the proposals before any of the changes are put in effect.

Previous Entires: Tauren Poole (Tennessee) | Isaiah Crowell (Georgia) | Vick Ballard (Mississippi St.)

Today we have another (sorta) boom or bust back in South Carolina's Marcus Lattimore. I say sorta for two reasons. First, Lattimore's season was cut short due to injury after only seven games. We're going to look at him anyway since he was well on pace to repeat/top his stellar 1197 yard performance in 2010, and who knows how the numbers would have averaged out had he played the rest of the season under the heavy load he was already carrying. Second, "boom" doesn't really describe Lattimore's running style. He's a power back built to grind out yardage, and expecting him to put up big yardage and ypc numbers on a limited amount of carries isn't very realistic. To put it another way, he's a great example of a workhorse back in a league that doesn't really use them anymore.

For those of you who are new to this, the Running Back Success Rate is a measure of how "successful" each of a running back's rushing attempts are. A "successful" run is one that :

Gains at least 40% of the yardage needed to move the chains on 1st down
Gains at least 60% of the yardage needed to move the chains on 2nd down
Gains at least 100% of the yardage needed to move the chains on 3rd and 4th down

With that in mind, here are Lattimore's numbers over the course of the season.

For the sake of comparison among the SEC backs we will only be looking at their performance against conference opponents to eliminate stat skewing performances against OOC cupcakes. Lattimore is an interesting case. Though his total numbers look pretty impressive, when you factor out the OOC games his success rate (56% / 48%), yards per carry (5.0 / 3.9), and yards per game (116.9 / 92.0) all take pretty significant drops. It's no surprise that two of his best performances (and two of his three most "successful" perfomances) came against the only two OOC teams he faced, noted defensive powerhouses East Carolina (#81 in the nation against the run) and Navy (#92). His 358 yards in those two games accounted for 44% of his total rushing yardage, accounting for the big drop in ypc average when only looking at the SEC. So let's look at his in conference performance:

Other than the big bump in both yardage and success against Kentucky (87th in the nation against the run), the way the success rate and yardage lines mostly mirror each other is a pretty good visual view of Lattimore, i.e. what you see is what you get with the stat line. I do want to talk about the Georgia game, though, and kind of point to it as the model game you would really want from a back like Lattimore. His 27 carries in that game were his second highest carry load of the season, with a very solid 176 yards (6.5 ypc) to show for it in a 45-42 shootout win for the Gamecocks. Lattimore either moved the chains or helped put the offense in a good position to do so 48% of the time (which is a good number) while also breaking off four rushes of 10+ yards (two of which were 20+). That's pretty much the ideal performance for a true power back in a high scoring game.

Overall, Lattimore's numbers are pretty much on target with what you would expect from a back of his skill set. He's not typically going to explode in any given game, but roughly half the touches he gets end up well for the offense and he does have enough big play capability to be a real every down back. It's a shame his season was cut short and that the portion of the season he did play in was mostly defined by the erratic play of Stephen Garcia. If he returns to form after his injury he'll once again be one of the best, if not the most spectacular, backs in the SEC in 2012.

Previous Entires: Tauren Poole (Tennessee) | Isaiah Crowell (Georgia)

With National Signing Day and a little real life out of the way, we can get back to the task of breaking down the SEC's top running backs and seeing which ones truly performed at a high level and which one's simply looked good on the stat sheets. This time we have Mississippi State's Vick Ballard under the microscope and, despite being the #4 rusher in the conference, we definitely have our first case of boom or bust performances really skewing the stat sheet and perception of his performance.

For those of you who are new to this, the Running Back Success Rate is a measure of how "successful" each of a running back's rushing attempts are. A "successful" run is one that :

Gains at least 40% of the yardage needed to move the chains on 1st down
Gains at least 60% of the yardage needed to move the chains on 2nd down
Gains at least 100% of the yardage needed to move the chains on 3rd and 4th down

With that in mind, here are Ballard's numbers over the course of the season.

For the sake of comparison among the SEC backs we will only be looking at their performance against conference opponents to eliminate stat skewing performances against OOC cupcakes, something that doesn't do Ballard many favors. Though his total numbers look good, when you factor out the OOC games his success rate (51% / 43%), yards per carry (6.2 / 4.7), and yards per game (84.1 / 71.5) all take pretty significant drops. Of his five most successful performances, four came against the OOC regular season slate, with only Auburn (the SEC's #11 rush defense) and Kentucky (#10) allowing him a 50% or greater performance. Even Ole Miss, who finished dead last in the SEC against the run, held him to 48% despite giving up several stat skewing big plays.

So let's look at his in conference performance:

Again, against the three worst run defenses in the conference Ballard put up some reasonably strong numbers, but against everyone else he was effectively a non-factor. And even against non-conference opponents Ballard generally did pretty well, though I do want to point out one thing that perfectly sums up why this metric is useful in evaluating performances. In the Music City Bowl against Wake Forest, Ballard ran 14 times for 180 yards and two TDs. That's a jaw dropping 12.9 ypc average, but he came out with only a 43% success rate. You know why? 86% of his yardage came on three runs of 60 (TD), 22, and 72 (TD) yards. While you certainly want your backs breaking off big game changing runs like that, not every defense is going to give them an opportunity to do it once, much less three times in a game. So even though Ballard has big play capability, against the SEC less than half of his carries helped put his offense in a position to move the chains.

Overall, looking at his performance against the stronger defenses he faced, and considering Mississippi State just wasn't that good of a team this season, I have to give Ballard credit for grinding out a 1000+ yard season. He reminds me of Tauren Poole a little; he'd never be a Heisman contender, but he's at least a capable enough running back that if he played on a team with a more balanced offense that didn't almost completely rely on him he would have had a greater chance at a very special year.

NFL threads are a rarity on RBR, but we make an exception for the Super Bowl and we will do so again tonight as well. Chime in here with all of your thoughts and comments on the Pats versus the Giants.

Another year, another top rated recruiting class. The Tide finished the day ranked #1 by Rivals, ESPN, MaxPreps, and 247sports.com, while Scouts has us at #2 behind Texas (quick, someone hurt Colt McCoy's shoulder!). OTS and I will break down this year's class, who we got, who we didn't, depth, the lack of drama, and etc. starting at 7:30 CST. You can join us in the chat or listen with the widget below, or if you miss it you can direct download here or download via iTunes shortly after the recording has stopped. Roll Tide.

Folks, it's your last opportunity to see DeQuan Menzie, Brad Smelley, Courtney Upshaw, and William Vlachos in an Alabama helmet, so make the most of it.

Game time/date: 3:00 PM CST, Saturday, January 28, 2012

Location: Ladd-Peebles Stadium, Mobile, Alabama.

TV Coverage: NFL Network. Paul Burmeister, Mike Mayock and Charles Davis will be in the booth, while Rebecca Haarlow and Heath Evans roam the sidelines.

Radio Coverage: Sirius XM Radio, Channel 88. Jason Horowitz, Tim Ryan, and Pat Kirwan with the call. Jim Miller will serve as the sideline reporter.

Rosters: The North Team, and the South Team.

I had planned to count these down from #10 - #1 of the SEC's Top Ten Rushers but quickly remembered that the days of the feature back are almost gone and looking at the performance of individual backs in crowded backfields doesn't paint the same picture as looking at all of them together. Only LSU really had a running back by committee approach, using four different backs on a regular basis, but looking at someone like Chris Rainey, who finished sixth in the league at 71.8 yards per game, without also looking at Jeff Demps doesn't really paint the whole picture. So I'm skipping ahead for the next couple of days with guys who carried the biggest portion of their team's burden, like Georgia's Isaiah Crowell. While the Dawgs did routinely use rushers Carlton Thomas and Richard Samuel, Crowell's 185 carries was still 30 more than their 155 combined carries despite missing both the New Mexico State and Georgia Tech games. What I'm trying to get at here is that Crowell was the main event, so let's just go with it.

For those of you who are new to this, the Running Back Success Rate is a measure of how "successful" each of a running back's rushing attempts are. A "successful" run is one that :

Gains at least 40% of the yardage needed to move the chains on 1st down
Gains at least 60% of the yardage needed to move the chains on 2nd down
Gains at least 100% of the yardage needed to move the chains on 3rd and 4th down

With that in mind, here are Crowell's numbers over the course of the season.

Again, for the sake of comparison among the SEC back we will only be looking at their performance against conference opponents to eliminate stat skewing performances against OOC cupcakes, but in Crowell's case it's almost a moot point. Both his success rate and ypc average remained the same against the total schedule and the conference slate. I suspect a big reason is that, as previously mentioned, he sat two of the OOC games, giving him less of an opportunity to pad the stats sheets as some of the other backs in the league. So let's look at his in conference performance:

As most of you will recall, Crowell was a VHT, super stud recruit that pretty much everyone in the SEC, including Alabama, wanted and was effectively thrust into the starting role as a true freshman after Georgia faced a mass exodus (in one way or another) of running backs over the off season. That graph you see up there? That's almost exactly what I expected from a super stud true freshman that's long on talent but short on experience/development. I think a big part of that is the fact he was being counted on as a workhorse as a true freshman, and that's a pretty heavy load to carry in the SEC. You can see a steady decline in both his yardage and ypc average after the South Carolina game. The next week Crowell carried 30 times against Ole Miss, and not only did his yards/ypc decline but so did his number of carries. Not until a relatively light 10 carries against Vandy (and a week off before Auburn) did his numbers start to improve in those areas and get back to where you generally want your feature back to be. He also only carried twice against Kentucky (his best performance with 100% success!), but against a stout LSU defense he simply couldn't get anything going again. Looking at his success rate numbers, he remained fairly consistent, even showing a steady rise before running into the LSU defense's brick wall in the SEC Championship Game. The less than 50% numbers aren't good, though, and coupled with the sharp decline in yardage in the midseason you get the sense that, as a true freshman, Crowell simply wasn't really ready to carry the load that was put on him. The wear of the workhorse load eliminated the explosive plays that drive up the yardage/ypc numbers, and the true freshman in him kept him from being able to allow plays to develop and be the consistent grinder that can routinely keep the offense on schedule and move the chains when necessary. Overall, I'm actually pretty impressed with Crowell. If he can really take a big leap next year and develop the talent that is clearly there, Georgia will have themselves a heck of a feature back.