Rutgers NFL draft bio: Ray Rice

By Darrell Laurant  |   Thursday, January 31, 2008  |  Comments( 0 )

Rutgers Scarlet Knights
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When some scouts look at ex-Rutgers running back Ray Rice on film, they see deficiencies. Others see Emmitt Smith.

Like the 5-foot-9, 205-pound Rice, Smith was considered too short and a step slow to be an elite NFL back. We all know how accurate those predictions turned out to be.

And those who say Rice should have stuck around for his senior year, as did former high school teammate Courtney Greene, simply aren't seeing it from his perspective.

Sure, there were incentives to return. He could have spent another fall sharing offensive touches with a 3,000-yard passer (Mike Teel) and two 1,000-yard receivers (Tiquan Underwood, Kenny Britt). In 2006, the Scarlet Knights were hotter than Springsteen in the Garden State -- last year was a relative disappointment (8-5, 3-4 in the Big East).

Even more of a draw might have been a legitimate shot at passing Ron Dayne (ironically, a Jersey star who spurned Rutgers for Wisconsin) as the all-time leading career rusher in Division I-A. Rice is 1,471 yards short of Dayne, and he gained 2,012 last year alone.

But think about it. In three years at Rutgers, Rice has carried the ball 910 times. So far, through all those collisions, he has managed to escape a career-ending injury. For a back already considered marginal as far as speed is concerned, one torn ACL could be enough to leave him pondering what might have been as he watches pro games on TV the rest of his life.

Far better to see Rice leave Rutgers football on a pedestal than on a cart.

Last year's Rutgers offensive line was brutally effective, led by tackles Jeremy Zuttah and Pedro Sosa. They'll be gone next year, and some of the hard lessons their replacements have to learn would have come at the expense of Rice's body.

In 2006, Rice had Brian Leonard to watch his back (and his front) and share the ball-carrying burden. Leonard also caught most of the passes out of the backfield.

Last season, it would be hard to find any back in America who had more of a load dumped on his sturdy shoulders. Rutgers ran 538 running plays, 380 of them to Rice. The second-busiest runner, with 82 carries, was backup quarterback Jabu Lovelance; the third, with 36, freshman running back Mason Robinson. Not counting Teel's 10 listed carries, which wound up losing 47 yards, the No. 5 Rutgers rusher was wideout Tim Brown and No. 6 was Zuttah, a tackle (one carry, 13 yards).

Given this set of circumstances, Rice didn't fool anybody. They knew he was coming, and when he was coming. They just couldn't stop him. He was the leading Scarlet Knight rusher every game, and his least productive outing (not counting an early exit in a blowout of Norfolk State) was 94 yards against a swarming Cincinnati defense that keyed on him relentlessly. That was the game, NFL scouts, when Rice caught four passes for 49 yards.

So he can catch. And as for speed, ask the handful of Ball State defenders he left behind on his 90-yard run in the International Bowl.

"I think he might have been better off waiting and becoming a more mature player," scouting oracle Gil Brandt told the Newark Star Ledger.

Based on what we've seen of Rice's on-field demeanor -- no strutting, taunting or spiking, treating each of his 50 Rutgers touchdowns as though they were a natural outcome of his hard work -- he already seems pretty mature.

And ready.
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