Top 50 freshmen seasons in college football history*
*According to ESPN,
Two Wolverines make the list (Woodson '95 at #34; Henne '04 at #41).
Top-five:
1. Hugh Green '77 Pitt
2. Herschel Walker '80 UGA
3. Orlando Pace '94 tOSU
4. Trevor Lawrence '18 Clemson
5. Ron Dayne '96 Wisconsin
Full list here: https://www.espn.com/college-football/insider/story/_/id/34346198/college-football-50-greatest-true-freshman-seasons-all
I’m assuming redshirt freshman don’t count in this correct?
Yeah it's true freshmen. Michael Vick and Dre Bly immediately came to mind but I guess both redshirted.
I'm surprised Anthony Carter and Rick Leach didn't make the list if Henne did.
It seems like all the WRs either had 1000 yards receiving their freshman year or had big years in the return game. Anthony Carter’s freshman year: 17 rec 462 yds 7 TD. The avg yard per reception is insane but don’t know if that alone should crack the top 50.
Rick Leach’s freshman year: 32% completion pct, 680 pass yds, 3 pass TDS, 12 INTs, 552 rush yds, 5 TDs, 4.9 yds/carry. Not top 50 worthy
If my memory serves me correctly, Schembechler starting a true freshman at QB was somewhat startling. Was there no other QB available to start to allow Leach to transition in, or was Leach's potential so great Schembechler couldn't resist?
32% completion is not so great. That offense back then wasn't heavy on passing (it was I-formation triple option, if I recall), so maybe Leach was really good at executing the option.
Leach was a great athlete and good at running the option. He was also really good at throwing the ball into the defense’s hands. He is famous for getting to three rose bowls in a row…but they don’t mentioned he lost them all. He is usually overrated because he started 4 years in a row which inflates his numbers. His passing sucked. During games, whenever Leach went back to pass the entire crowd would go silent out of fear. You could hear the muffled “oh nos” above the silence.
Wangler was Bo’s first passer. Wangler to Carter. With Carter on the team as a freshman, Bo had to go with a QB that could actually throw the ball accurately. Just getting the ball into Carter’s hands would win games.
Dennis Franklin was Bo’s best option QB. He had a better winning percentage than Leach.
Harbaugh was probably Bo’s best QB.
The main other QB on the roster Mark Elzinga, just wasn't that good I think, especially at running the option. The Michigan offense back then was almost entirely running, with passes only thrown as a "change of pace". Bo probably felt Leach gave Michigan the best option to succeed.
Ricky’s best strength was running the option on 3rd down. He had the knack of converting short yardage situations into first downs, even when everyone in the stadium knew that’s what Bo was going to run. Coaches love that quality.
I think “best option to succeed” was the tag line for BJ Dickey. Fortunately, by the end of the season, it was Wangler at QB. Dickey had a bad day vs. ND and that started his departure as a starter. He just wasn’t the guy that could get the ball to AC.
Was Wangler to Carter in AC's freshman year?
If so, that bumps him up into the top 10 in my book.
Go Blue.
Yes it was. Homecoming of 1979 versus Indiana.
Mike Hart anyone?
I don't remember Woodson having a great season. I think he had some very good moments that year. I actually feel like what Henne was asked to do as QB1 from Day 1 is quite a bit more impressive, especially as a pocket passer.
Tyrone Wheatley? 9 TDs as a frosh.
But Mike Hart 1400 yards and 10TD as a freshman. That's probably my big winner.
Who's the big winner here... that's right, Mikey's the big winner.
Woodson was freshman of the year, first team All-Big Ten, had five picks (two against OSU, including the game sealer) and my memory is that everyone other than OSU was terrified of him by like, mid October.
Hart should 100% be on the list
Woodson had a stellar freshman year.
That said, he let a 4th down pass from Tony Banks go through his finger tips and into the hands of a receiver for the conversion on MSU's game winning drive. Major bummer.
Just went and rewatched that part of the game to see if I was remembering it right.
It was 2nd down, not 4th down, but it was a clear missed opportunity for an interception... hit him in the hands, not the finger tips. Next play came the game winning touchdown pass.
No matter the era, Sparty victories over UM so often flukish
I agree about Hart's 2004 season. To me, that was bigger than Henne's season, who had Braylon Edwards to "bail him out" on a lot of mid to long passes. Hart smashed Michigan's previous freshman rushing record by quite a bit, and will likely hold that record for a very long time.
I always thought Dayne was overrated with big stats piled up against soft opponents on the cheeseheads' cupcake schedule.
Dayne’s stats were hollow. He never did shit against Michigan. I was not surprised at all when he was a bum in the NFL.
Dayne's stats against Michigan:
1996: did not play
1997: 0 yards (was he injured?)
1998: 53 yards
1999: 88 yards
Didn't play in '97 either. Carl McCullough ran for 102 in his absence and Mike Samuel for 73 more. Samuel was sacked a bunch to lose 24 though.
To clarify, we did not play Wisconsin in 1996. We did play them in 1997, but Dayne had no yards. This is an interesting stat since it suggests that Dayne heavily back-loaded his yards. Not a totally crazy thing, but I totally thought he was a starter since he was a freshman and he grinded out all those yards over 4 years.
Dayne's freshman season:
EMU: 8 carries, 53 yards
UNLV: 13 carries, 90 yards
Stanford: 12 carries, 75 yards
(Gets starting job)
PSU: 24 carries 129
OSU: 21 for 75
NW: 28 for 139
MSU: 15 for 81
Purdue: 30 for 245 (last pre-Tiller Purdue team, they stank)
Minnesota: 50 (!!!) for 297
Iowa: 17 for 62 (Badgers were blown out)
Illinois: 41 for 289
Hawai'i: 36 for 339
Utah (bowl game): 30 for 246
Those last six games are insane. 204 carries in six games for 1478 yards.
He won two Rose Bowls and and 200+ yards in both games.
He ran over two horrible run defenses in both of those Rose Bowls. I know one was against UCLA who had nobody to stop him. They were not equipped to stop smash mouth football.
That UCLA team played RichRod like defense, giving up nearly 40 points a game.
And the Stanford team they played in the 2000 Rose Bowl was unranked (8-4), coached by Ty Willingham and beat one team with a winning record all year.
Even when Wisconsin goes to the Rose Bowl they STILL have it easy. They're not playing #1 ranked USC with Reggie Bush or #2 ranked Texas with Vince Young like when Michigan plays there.
Yes, he often looked lost in his games against Michigan. Without looking at highlights, I recall at least one play, if not several, where he went left at the snap while the play went right and the QB had no one to handoff to.
Fairly certain it was 3 times in one game vs Michigan where he went the wrong way on an option or stretch. He played drunk against us. My father has always called him "Wrong Way" Dayne.
He claimed he couldn't hear the calls because of the crowd noise at the big house.
I remember feeling very confident about that game. It was mid-November and Wisconsin had only played two teams with a winning record (and San Diego State had just gotten over .500 the week before) and even with Ron Dayne, I knew we were winning. I couldn't wait to expose them. Barry Alvarez's head looked like it wasn't going to explode multiple times. I loved it.
I agree Ron is probably overrated at #5, but he was what felt like the first of a long series of successful bowling balls that Wisconsin successfully used. He may have helped usher in a new era of Big 10 football as we know it. Sure, some other conferences had some power smash mouth styles with teams like Arkansas there for awhile, but nothing like what Big 10 defenses had to prepare (and recruit) for against Wisconsin. If you didn’t have the big bodies to match their strength, they’d steamroll you.
Interesting at least to think where the traditional “Big 10 football” style came from. Obviously U of M /OSU also had strong running games for that long stretch too, but nothing compared to the all-out Wisconsin ground attack.
One of my favorite players ever, Ty Wheatley, was also a “bum” in the pros, by the definition here. Neither was as good a pro as they were in college. Dayne lasted 8 years in the NFL. He was never a star, but neither was TW.
In fairness to Dayne, he had a lot of injuries in the pros. Wisconsin put a lot of miles on that rickshaw.
No Hart?
Hey! I had a couple good IM basketball games when I was a frosh. Why ain't I included?
5'9" and under league or the tall guy league?
Me. I'm a giant. 6'.
As a youngin, honestly hadn't heard of Green. Crazy college stats, 53 sacks in 4 years. Then never reached 8 sacks in the NFL.
Hugh Green was a beast. Pitt had quite a few good years. What with Green, Dorsett and Marino plus a NC.
Seems like a highly subjective rating system. I don't know how they can say (for example) X offensive lineman had a better freshman year than Y wide receiver. Anything to get clicks I guess.
Where is Maurice Clarett on the list? I always thought his freshman year was one of the greatest I'd seen.
Shocking! Seems a more appropriate ranking for his pro-am rugby career, lol.
No Justin Feagin?
I turned 21 in September 1995, met a buddy for a beer then at Touchdown’s, he was football student manager. He told me we had a true freshman that was already a better cover cornerback than Ty Law. I called bullshit, Law was just taken #23 overall by the Patiots a few months prior. No way this could be true.
welp.…..
Hard to believe anyone was better than Herschel Walker.
Henne’s first start vs Miami (NTM) was also my first game at the Big House. Mike Gutierrez was hurt and the rest was history.
August 6th, 2022 at 12:32 PM ^
Who were the top 50?
Someone should make a list…