Ranking the Big Ten’s top 5 all-time RBs

9:01 PM ET

This year marks the Big Ten’s 120th anniversary so, all this week, we’re cracking open the history books and looking back at some of the conference’s best players. We’re ranking the top 5 all-time B1G players at each position and, every day, we’ll give you an offensive position and a defensive position.

These lists aren’t based on NFL success or failure. They’re based on each player’s college career and how it was viewed in his respective time period. And, once again, we’re considering every player who came from a team currently in the Big Ten. In other words, no need to remind us that Nebraska didn’t officially join the Big Ten until 2011.

Up next: Running backs.

1. Red Grange, Illinois, 1923-1925: Did you really think we’d choose anyone else but the Galloping Ghost in the top spot? Grange was named the greatest college football player ever by ESPN back in 2008. One writer, Damon Runyon who watched him play, wrote: “He is Jack Dempsey, Babe Ruth, Al Jolson, Paavo Nurmi and Man o’ War. Put together, they spell Grange.” He was a three-time consensus All-American, a charter member of the College Football Hall of Fame and a staple on every conceivable all-time team. In just 20 career college games, he rushed for 3,362 yards and 31 touchdowns. Against Michigan, in 1924, he rushed 21 times for 402 yards and scored four TDs in the game’s first 12 minutes. Said then-Illinois coach Bob Zuppke: “I will never have another Grange — but neither will anyone else.”

2. Archie Griffin, Ohio State, 1972-1975: He’s the only player to ever win back-to-back Heisman Trophies, and he even finished fifth in the Heisman vote as a sophomore. His accolades just read as if they were pieced together from a video game: He started in four Rose Bowls, rushed …

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