As for running backs in this weekend’s NFL draft, there is Reggie Bush . . . and there is everybody else.
Bush is so clearly ahead of the rest of the bunch that it has been difficult for any of the others to make headlines.
LenDale White has managed to do so. Unfortunately for him.
White, who shared running duties with Bush at Southern California, has done little to impress NFL teams since the Trojans lost to Texas in the Rose Bowl in January.
First, he showed up at the NFL combine and admitted he played in the national championship game at more than 250 pounds, though his normal playing weight during the season was between 233 and 239. He blamed his family’s home cooking over the holidays.
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White chose not to work out at the combine in late February, supposedly to save it all for USC’s Pro Day April 2. But he somehow gained 6 pounds in the interim, as he prepared to impress.
Worse yet, his Pro Day performance was disappointing. He was not impressive in the bench press (only 15 repetitions at 225 pounds, compared with 24 lifts for the 200-pound Bush), and claimed a hamstring injury prevented him from running the 40-yard dash. Oh, and he said he injured the hamstring at the combine. Yes, the one at which he didn’t work out.
Eventually, he produced an MRI that showed a tear in his right hamstring, and the chiropractor that conducted the exam said White would be healed by mid-May. That does little for the teams evaluating him for the draft.
“If you’re a team, how do you take a running back who doesn’t run a 40-yard dash?” Texans general manager Charley Casserly told the Los Angeles Times at USC’s Pro Day. “At some point, you’ve got to find out how fast somebody is.”
Teams will have to go to the videotape to do so with White. That should help him. It is evidence of how White made a name for himself in a positive way in his three years with the Trojans, building his stock to where he once was considered a top-10 pick.
While Bush, known as the lightning in the USC attack, garnered most of the headlines on his way to winning the Heisman Trophy last season, White brought the thunder with much less fanfare, but no less impressive results.
Officially, White did not start any of USC’s 13 games, but he finished with 1,302 rushing yards (6.6 per carry) and 219 receiving yards (15.6 per catch), and was a scoring machine.
He finished second nationally in scoring (two TDs per game). His 24 rushing TDs were the most in the country and matched the Patriots’ Corey Dillon (at Washington in 1996) for the most in a season in the Pacific-10 Conference. White’s 156 points were a school record. In 39 career games, he scored 52 rushing touchdowns, and added five receiving.
Bush rushed for 2,648 yards and scored 31 touchdowns the last two seasons, finishing fifth in the Heisman Trophy voting in 2004, and winning the trophy last year.
White contributed 2,405 yards and 43 TDs in those two seasons, and he was the first USC back to post consecutive 1,000-yard seasons since Marcus Allen in 1980-81. Yet White earned only an Associated Press third-team All-America honor in 2005.
Bush and White entered USC at the same time, and in three years as teammates Bush finished with only 10 more rushing yards (3,169) than White (3,159).
“Honestly, I don’t think he’s overshadowed me at all,” White said of Bush. “I think guys who know football know what I’m capable of, they know what I can do. Unfortunately, I played with a great running back, but I played with another great player, (quarterback and 2004 Heisman winner) Matt Leinart. It also helped me a lot learning from those guys. I’d go back and play with Reggie all over again.”
One thing White has that Bush doesn’t is bulk. There might be questions of whether he can control his weight, but under control his weight is an asset. League sources believe the Pittsburgh Steelers would like to draft White to replace the retired Jerome Bettis.
“I might be the biggest back out here,” White said. “But whatever team picks me, I’m going to be ready to go. Whatever they need me to do–run hard and get the tough yards or be an every-down back–I’m willing to do that.”
Will three years of excellent play in piling up more than 3,000 yards in pads be erased by a three-month stretch when he was unable to run 40 yards in shorts?
“All the rumors that have been going around during this process, it hurts that it hurt my family,” White told the Denver Post. “For me, personally, as an athlete, I’ve been trying to relax and dodge everything that’s been coming my way.
“As a family, we knew that with me not running on the Pro Day, a lot of things were going to come out. Had I run that Pro Day and ran a 4.5, nothing would have been said. I’m leaving it in God’s hands from here and, hopefully, everything will work out.”