I don’t want to stop the discussion here at all. For the sake of completeness, though, I do offer our first discussion on this matter, found here.

And our second discussion on this matter, found here.

I also reiterate my statistical analysis of their Pac10 only common opponents:

Jahvid Best: Overall 174 for 1394

MSU 24 for 111
Md 10 for 25
CSU 11 for 85

Pac10 Only 129 for 1173 for an average of 9.09 (over a yard higher than his actual average, which is interesting)

Quizz: Overall 259 for 1253

PSU 22 for 99
Hawii 26 for 110
Utah 25 for 101

Pac10 Only 186 for 943 for an average of 5.06

And due to the legally mandated Fairness Doctrine, include Rishi’s counter statistical analysis:

Best v/ Quizz YPC

Wazzou: 14.3 v 7.3 Big Deal
ASU: DNP v 4.4
Zona: 6.7 v 5 (only four carries)
UCLA: 6.8 v 4.6
Oregon: 5.8 v DNP
USC: 2.3 v 5.0 (THERE WE GO)
Furd: 10.6 v 3.9 (Quizz’s first game)
UDub: 16.4 v 4.7

And, for fun, let’s pretend Maryland and PSU were the same team:
OOC: 2.5 v 4.5

Finally, to save you guys time of scrolling those through hundreds of posts, I offer the following synopses of the two camps’ seeming arguments:

Bestites: “Looking over the course of the entire year, Jahvid Best not only has more yards, but also over 3 more yards per carry. This is such an extreme differential that it counters the fact that Best racked up HUGE amounts of yards against weak opponents such as UDub and WSU. As a final note, he only played 1 half pretty much against those opponents, so it also sort of evens out AND Quizz got to play them, too, so he had his chance to rack up huge amounts of yards.”

Quizznos: “We take nothing away from the great year that Best had. But look at some key games, such as Maryland and USC. Best was held to minimal yards. Certainly, Best is more of a home run threat, but Quizz is the more consistent back. Even though Best has more ypc, some of that stems more from huge 60 yard runs than actually getting 8 yards on each and every run. I’d rather have the bruising consistency of Quizz than the explosiveness of Best.”

That said, do not hesitate to continue this conversation and I’m sure that this in no way undercuts our answer to the Roundtable when it comes out on Thursday.

Man, nothing could be more pertinent after the insane discussion of today.

“and is not consistent”

That’s one of the arguments I’ve heard over and over as to why Quizz is supposedly better!

However, in my research (and I wrote this on my site) I found that Best had 44 carries of 10+ yards and Quizz had 41 carries of 10+ yards. So that theory goes out the window, in my opinion. And remember, Best did this with far fewer carries.

http://caldanceteam.berkeley.edu/index.php5

Why does this seem like a bad idea?

All the Oregon State guys are stinky Beavers. Best >>> Quizz. Without a doubt, Best will get drafted higher than Quizz.

I say, forget the statistics. Just watch the film. Best is clearly better.

As for the argument about Pac-10 player of the year, I’m fine with ceding it to the midget. He was responsible for the signature Pac-10 victory of the year vs. USC.

Best’s playmaking ability is great, but he rolled much of it up on terrible defenses—subtract the two Washington games and he averaged less than a hundred yards a game.

I respect the hell out of Quizz. And I don’t relish the thought of us playing against him for the next 3 years. But I’ll take our guy — I think Best is best. The guy is a threat to house it at any time. I’ll grant that Best did not bring the A-game in high profile games, while Quizz did. (Which is why I can live with Quizz being POTY, notwithstanding Best blowing him away in all rushing statistical categories.) But I like having Best’s multiple dimensions — rushing, receiving, returning — and his KA BOOM capability.

Not that anyone needs to be a Best apologist, but let’s face it — we had OL problems this year. If Best were working with the O-lines we had in ’04, ’05, or ’06, we might have been looking at at a JJ type of year.