Ranking the top 10 running backs in Georgia football history – Red and Black

Leading up to the 2023-2024 college football season season, Red & Black assistant sports editor Bo Underwood will count down the top 10 Georgia players at each individual position.

Rodney Hampton, UGA running back 1987-1989. Credit: The Red & Black, September 27, 1989.

Rodney Hampton burst onto the scene as a freshman in 1987, rushing for 890 yards and four touchdowns on seven yards a carry. Hampton did all of this while sharing the backfield with senior star Lars Tate. His stats took a dip the following year thanks to the presence of another senior in Tim Worley, but Hampton was finally the lead back during his junior year in 1989 and rushed for 1,059 yards and 12 touchdowns.

He was one of the only bright spots for a struggling Georgia team that finished 6-6 under first-year head coach Ray Goff. Hampton went on to become a two-time Pro Bowler and a Super Bowl champion with the New York Giants, but his college career wasnt too shabby either.

Lars Tate was one of the most influential running backs in Sanford Stadium history. (Left: Courtesy/UGA Athletics, Right: The Red & Black,1987.)

The aforementioned Tate was as steady as they come for the Bulldogs. He never averaged anything less than nearly five yards per carry after his freshman year, and only two Bulldogs have ever carried the ball more times.

The bruising runner is also tied for third in career rushing touchdowns with 36, and helped provide some much needed stability in the backfield for a Georgia program that was struggling to find itself in the wake of Herschel Walkers departure.

Georgia running back Knowshon Moreno celebrates a touchdown during a game against LSU on Oct. 25, 2008 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (Ashley Connell)

Knowshon Moreno only suited up for Georgia for two seasons, but to say he made them count would be a gross understatement.

The New Jersey native ran for 1,334 yards and 14 touchdowns as a redshirt freshman on his way to being crowned SEC Freshman of the Year, and then he followed it up the next year with 1,400 yards and 16 touchdowns.

A physical runner, who seemed to always crave contact despite being undersized, Moreno made First Team All-SEC twice, and was one of the most dominant backs in the country during his brief career.

Frank Sinkwich, UGA running back 1941-1942. Credit: The Red & Black September 25, 1942.

Frank Sinkwich starred at Georgia from 1940 to 1942 and became the teams first ever Heisman winner. The reason that a Heisman winner is so low on this list is because he might as well have been playing a different sport, as football in the 1940s looked nothing like football does today in 2023.

Sinkwich is only 12th in Georgia history in career rushing yards, and a large part of that is because he also threw for 2,331 yards, and had as many career passing touchdowns as rushing touchdowns with 30 apiece. While Sinkwich was an incredibly versatile player, one of the best in Georgia history and one of the few Georgia players to have their number retired, his unique positional status and not being what classifies as a modern running back pushes him down a bit.

Georgia Bulldogs halfback Charley Trippi passes during practice in 1946. Trippi, a runner-up for the Heisman Trophy at Georgia who went on to lead the Cardinals to their most recent NFL championship in 1947, died Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2022. He was 100. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File)

Another blast from the past. Its tough to rank players from the 1940s among the more modern backs because the sport was just so different back then. Charley Trippi is one of the greatest players of that era and went on to become a Pro Football Hall of Famer as well.

Like Sinkwich, he didnt crack the Georgia career top 10 in rushing yards, but was Georgias best player on both offense and defense, and won the 1943 Rose Bowl almost by himself.

After his career was interrupted by his service in World War II, Trippi returned to Georgia and won the Maxwell Award in 1946 in addition to finishing as the Heisman Trophy runner up. Its hard to box Trippi in as just a running back, since he played about five different positions, but he more than deserves his spot here.

Todd Gurley (3) is stopped during an attempted run by Darreon Herring (35) of Vanderbilt in the second half of the game. Gurley had 25 carries for 165 yards and two touchdowns on the day as Georgia won 44-17 over Vanderbilt (Photo/Joshua L. Jones @JjoshGA)

Watching Todd Gurley can be described as watching an alien sent from another planet to play football. He was that talented of a player. Gurley made an immediate impact as a freshman, rushing for 1,385 yards and 17 touchdowns, but never surpassed either of those numbers for the rest of his college career.

His 2013 season was cut short by injury, and he was arguably the most dominant player in the country in 2014 before being suspended for four games for NCAA rules violations and then tearing his ACL in his return against Auburn.

Hes still top five in Georgia history in career rushing yards and touchdowns, but Gurley could never reach his heisman potential.

georgia tailback Sony Michel (1) runs with the ball during the SEC Championship game between the Georgia Bulldogs and Auburn Tigers at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, on Saturday, December 2, 2017. (Photo/Reann Huber, http://www.reannhuber.com)

Sony Michel is one half of the most dominant backfield Georgia football has ever seen. After a relatively quiet freshman season buried on the bench behind Gurley and Nick Chubb, Michel took over in 2015 and ran for 1,136 yards and eight touchdowns after Chubb was lost to a knee injury. From there, he and Chubb combined to be one of the deadliest duos in college football history.

Michel had a great combination of size, speed and quickness, and hes third in program history in rushing yards and fifth in touchdowns. His effort in the 2018 Rose Bowl where he finished with 181 rushing yards, 41 receiving yards and four total touchdowns is one of Georgia footballs greatest single-game performances of all-time.

Garrison Hearst, UGA running back 1990-1992. Credit: The Red & Black, January 28, 1993.

Until Stetson Bennett came along in 2022, Hearst was Georgia footballs most recent Heisman finalist after he rushed for 1,547 yards and a Georgia record 19 touchdowns in 1992. That year he set then-SEC records for points scored in a season with 126, total touchdowns with 21, rushing touchdowns with 19 and yards per carry with nearly seven.

His blistering speed allowed him to outrun essentially everyone on the field, and he was still incredibly twitchy in the open field. Hearst is still fifth in Georgia history in rushing yards, and is one of the most talented runners to ever suit up for the team.

Georgia tailback Nick Chubb (27) runs the ball during the first half of a college football game between Georgia and Georgia Tech at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, on Saturday, Nov. 25, 2017. (Photo/Casey Sykes, http://www.caseysykes.com)

Chubb was elite from the get-go. He ran for 1,547 yards and 14 touchdowns as a true freshman while filling in for the suspended Todd Gurley and never looked back. While on his way to another monster year in 2015, Chubb suffered a severe knee injury against Tennessee that sidelined him for the rest of the season, but miraculously returned to form in 2016 and was a key part of Georgias first ever College Football Playoff run in 2017.

A devastating combination of power, shiftiness, and pure straight-line speed, Chubb is one of the most beloved players in Georgia history. He is second in Georgia history in both career rushing yards and touchdowns, and its hard to envision him falling too far down the record books any time soon.

As a freshman, Herschel Walker led the Georgia team to a win over Notre Dame in the national championship game. Walker rushed for more than 1,600 yards in his first season.

No surprise here. Walker takes the top spot, mostly because hes in the running for the dominant college football players of all time.

Walker is number one in Georgia history in essentially every rushing category one could think of, and hes the most recent Georgia player to win the Heisman trophy after his sensational 1982 season where he ran for 1,752 yards and 16 touchdowns. He put up 1,891 yards and 18 touchdowns in 1981, and had arguably the best freshman season in college football history in 1980 where he ran for 1,616 yards and 15 touchdowns. Walker was so dominant that he, nearly individually, carried Georgia to a national championship as a freshman.

For anyone that watched him in person or grew up after his dominant collegiate run, Walker was seen almost as a folk hero terroizing defenders from his career by running over them like a freight train clad in red and black. To put it bluntly, college football will never see another like Walker.

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Ranking the top 10 running backs in Georgia football history - Red and Black