Chuba Hubbard’s Numbers Remain Startling After Iowa State Performance

It got a little buried because the other 21 carries weren’t that great, but Chuba Hubbard put up another 116 yards on Saturday, which was also his second-lowest output of the season. To put this another way, Chuba posted a yardage that is more than all but seven other players are averaging on the year. And it felt like a disappointment, even if it’s not.

Chuba now has the 15th most-productive season in OSU history with an entire month plus the bowl game to go. The 2,000-yard mark is still very much in play, and he remains lapping the field like Usain Bolt showing up at a JV track meet.

Our favorite Canadian (actually Amen might really be my favorite Canadian but that’s another post) has fallen off Barry Sanders lol pace from 1988 (because of course), but he hasn’t fallen off anyone’s pace thus far for the 2019 season. He remains first in the nation in 20-, 30-, 40- and 50-yard rushes and is just obliterating the field in yardage.

There are so many ways to look at this, but here are a few I came up with today. First, just a straight bar graph of the yards-per-game leaders nationally.

The arc looks normal until you get to Chuba and then it’s like MYGOSH WHO IS THIS ALIEN FORM? These are all the guys who are averaging 100 or more nationally on the season. I didn’t want to embarrass the rest of the Big 12 and post conference-only RBs.

Here is another chart, and I think this one tells a better story.

It groups the top 100 backs in the nation by total yards. It, too, is comical. And it starts like you would imagine it would start. Nearly 40 guys have between 488-588 yards on the season. That number drops lower with every 100-yard increment. Then it gets to the presumed end, except it’s not the end. It skips two categories that have nobody in them and then … Chuba.

The definition of an outlier.

So yeah, we talk about Chuba a lot. But Chuba deserves to be talked about a lot. Enduring a pounding throughout the season is a skill. Breaking 70-yarders is a skill. Just because the route was a little more unconventional on Saturday and just because he also has the most carries in the nation doesn’t mean what he’s accomplished in 2019 is any less remarkable. We’ll continue to try and invent new ways to contextualize just how ridiculous all of it has been.