Top college football player from every state: Inside the biggest debates

By Sean Merriman
FOX Sports Senior Editor

Who is the all-time greatest college football player from each of the 50 states?

That is the question FOX Sports College Football Writer RJ Young and I attempted to answer in our recently published "Best College Player From Every State" story. 

While some of the selections for our list were as close to no-brainers are you can get (Barry Sanders for Kansas and Ronnie Lott for New Mexico), other states were much more challenging and led to lively debates.

First off, it is important to break down the criteria RJ and I used when creating this list.

• This list is based on the birthplace of every player.
• This list is based on players' collegiate careers.
• This list is based on the entirety of a college career, not a single season.

Now that we have that part settled, let’s get into the states that stirred up the hottest debates.

CALIFORNIA: REGGIE BUSH (SPRING VALLEY, CALIFORNIA)

Who else was in the running: Marcus Allen, O.J. Simpson, Matt Leinart, Ricky Williams

Inside the debate: If you grew up watching Reggie Bush shred opposing defenses during the early- to mid-2000s, then chances are you looked at his name under the state of California, said to yourself "yup, that checks out" and moved on. 

But the same can be said for Ricky Williams in the ‘90s, Marcus Allen in the ’80s and O.J. Simpson in the '60s. All three of those backs rushed for 3,400-plus yards during their college careers, and all three won the Heisman Trophy. In fact, Williams broke Tony Dorsett’s all-time NCAA rushing record in 1998, totaling 6,279 yards in just 46 career games. 

Bush’s college teammate, Matt Leinart, was another record-setting star born and raised in California. He left USC as the school’s all-time leader in career touchdown passes and completion percentage and ranked second behind former Heisman winner Carson Palmer in passing yards. He was the recipient of the 2004 Heisman and finished third in the voting his senior year behind Bush and runner-up Vince Young.

But in the end, the pick was Bush, who was arguably the greatest all-around skill player in college football history. In three years, Bush totaled 6,541 all-purpose yards en route to being named a two-time All-American and the 2005 recipient of the Heisman. In addition to his incredible individual stats, Bush helped lead the Trojans to 34 consecutive wins and two national titles at USC. 

GEORGIA: CAM NEWTON (ATLANTA)

Who else was in the running: Jim Brown, Calvin Johnson, Herschel Walker, Charlie Ward

Inside the debate: While there were at least 10 or 12 really difficult decisions to make with this list, deciding on the best college football player from the state of Georgia was hands-down the most challenging. One could make a legitimate argument for both Jim Brown and Herschel Walker as not only the best player from the state of Georgia but also the best player in college football history. 

In the mid-1950s, Brown was the most dominant player in the sport, and quite frankly, it wasn’t close. He led the nation in kickoff return average as a junior and rushing touchdowns as a senior en route to becoming Syracuse’s first unanimous All-American. 

Fast-forward 30 years to when Walker stepped onto campus at the University of Georgia, and he soon established himself as the player whom every great college running back is measured against. During his three-year college career, Walker rushed for 5,259 yards and 52 touchdowns while being named a three-time All-American. He was named the SEC Player of the Year all three years in college and won the 1982 Heisman, as well as the Maxwell and Walter Camp awards. Walker set 41 Georgia football records, 16 SEC records and 11 NCAA records while leading the Bulldogs to a combined 33-3 mark from 1980 to '82.

While both Calvin Johnson and Charlie Ward weren’t as strongly considered as Brown and Walker, they were certainly part of the conversation. Ward was a two-sport standout at Florida State and the winner of the 1993 Heisman after leading the Seminoles to their first national championship. Meanwhile, Johnson was a two-time first-team All-American and the 2006 ACC Player of the Year while at Georgia Tech. His 2,927 receiving yards and 28 career TDs are both school records.

When it was all said and done, a decision had to be made among Newton, Brown and Walker. All three had incredible statistics and a list of accolades as long as a novel, and perhaps most importantly, all of them were winners. 

As a result, we relied on the good ol’ eye test, and there simply wasn’t anything Newton couldn’t do on the football field. In 2010 at Auburn, he fell just 73 total yards shy of a 3,000-yard passing, 1,500-yard rushing season while accounting for 51 TDs and just seven picks. He rushed for, passed for and caught a touchdown that season while also recording a tackle. Quite simply, there is only one Cam Newton.

OHIO: ARCHIE GRIFFIN (COLUMBUS, OHIO)

Who else was in the running: Charles Woodson, Desmond Howard, Orlando Pace

Inside the debate: Let’s start by stating the obvious … you can’t create a list of the greatest college football players of all time and not include the only two-time Heisman Trophy winner. That said, when you also have the first defensive player to win the Heisman, the third wide receiver to win the Heisman and arguably the most dominant offensive lineman in college football history, it makes things a bit challenging.

Charles Woodson was a once-in-a-generation talent who took the college football world by storm in the mid-1990s. He starred as a defensive back but was also a standout wide receiver and return specialist at the University of Michigan. In his three seasons in Ann Arbor, Woodson totaled 16 interceptions, 370 receiving yards, three receiving touchdowns, 167 rushing yards, two rushing touchdowns, 321 punt return yards and a score.  Most importantly, he helped lead the Wolverines to the 1997 national championship, the program’s first since 1948.

Before Charles Woodson became the "big man on campus" at the University of Michigan, Desmond Howard was the biggest name in Ann Arbor. After being recruited as a tailback, Howard moved positions and starred as both a wide receiver and a return specialist. His signature moment came in his 1991 Heisman season, when he returned a punt 93 yards for a score against rival Ohio State and then struck the Heisman pose in the end zone.

The other name to consider in the state of Ohio was former Buckeye offensive tackle Orlando Pace, aka "The Pancake Man." A two-time unanimous All-American, Pace became the first player in college football history to win the Lombardi Award as a sophomore and then repeat as a junior. 

This was a difficult decision that led to quite a debate, but the two-time Heisman winner who started in four consecutive Rose Bowl games had to be the pick. In his four-year career, Griffin topped the 100-yard rushing mark 34 times, including in an NCAA-record 31 consecutive games. 

TEXAS: VINCE YOUNG (HOUSTON)

Who else was in the running: Earl Campbell, Eric Dickerson, Adrian Peterson

Inside the debate: Texas is known as the football capital of the world, so choosing the top player to come out of the Lone Star State was no easy task. Outside of Vince Young, every other player who was considered just so happened to be a running back, and two of them starred at the collegiate level in the same era.

In addition to both being born and raised in the state of Texas, Earl Campbell and Eric Dickerson had a lot of similarities on the gridiron. Both were known for their punishing style of running, as they used their size and strength to run through opponents. Campbell finished his college career at Texas with 4,443 yards and 40 rushing touchdowns in 40 games en route to winning the 1977 Heisman Trophy. 

Shortly after that, Dickerson hit the collegiate scene with a bang, totaling 4,450 yards on 790 carries, which broke Campbell’s Southwest Conference record for yards and attempts. 

There were plenty of outstanding backs from the state of Texas over the next couple of decades, but when Adrian Peterson stepped foot on Oklahoma’s campus as a true freshman, there was a sense of greatness that he brought with him. Nicknamed "AD" for "All Day," Peterson erupted onto the scene in 2004, rushing for 1,925 yards and 15 touchdowns while leading the Sooners to the BCS Championship Game. He went on to top the 1,000-yard rushing mark in all three of his seasons in Norman, finishing his collegiate career with 4,041 yards and 41 rushing touchdowns.

As good as that trio was, there simply wasn’t any college football quarterback like Vince Young, which became more than evident in the 2006 Rose Bowl, when he put together arguably the single greatest individual performance in college football history: 267 passing yards, 200 rushing yards, three touchdowns and a victory over a USC team that had won 34 straight games. 

Young finished that season with 3,036 yards passing, 1,050 yards rushing and 38 total touchdowns, making him the first player in NCAA Division I history to throw for more than 3,000 yards and rush for more than 1,000 yards in a season. 

Other states that featured great debates:

FLORIDA: Deion Sanders (Fort Myers, Florida)

Who else was in the running: Anthony Carter, Tommy Frazier, Derrick Thomas

MISSISSIPPI: Jerry Rice (Starkville, Mississippi)

Who else was in the running: Hugh Green, Archie Manning, Steve McNair, Walter Payton

NEW JERSEY: Mike Rozier (Camden, New Jersey)

Who else was in the running: Mark Ingram, Franco Harris, Raghib Ismail

OKLAHOMA: Sam Bradford (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma)

Who else was in the running: Brian Bosworth, Lee Roy Selmon, Jim Thorpe, Jason White

PENNSYLVANIA: Tony Dorsett (Rochester, Pennsylvania)

Who else was in the running: Chuck Bednarik, Fred Biletnikoff, Eddie George, Red Grange