J.T. Barrett and Tim Tebow were always trusted to get a first down in critical situations

Earlier, I compared how often J.T. Barrett ran the ball in short-yardage situations with other running quarterbacks, finding that he likely had the most short-yardage runs of any quarterback in the country in 2017, the second-highest percentage of his team’s short-yardage carries, and the second-highest success rate on those runs, too.

I decided to also take a look at how that compared with other Ohio State running backs in 2017, 2016, and in 2014, as well as how Barrett compared with Tim Tebow, who was known even more for his fullback-like carries in short-yardage situations.

Barrett over time

The main takeaway here: J.T. Barrett has gotten more and more carries in short-yardage situations throughout his career, and has only gotten more efficient at getting first downs. For three seasons, J.T. has converted over two-thirds of his short-yardage runs, and he converted an astounding three-quarters of his attempts this season.

That’s about as automatic as you could hope for.

2017 Season Comparison

Compared with Dobbins and Weber this season, Barrett had as many attempts as the two running backs combined, and actually had the same number of first downs as the two combined as well.

This mostly says that the offensive line was pretty incredible in short-yardage situations this year, but it also suggests that the Buckeyes might be alright if one of those two running backs has to shoulder the short-yardage load next season instead of whoever winds up starting at quarterback.

2016 Season Comparison

Last year Mike Weber had nearly as many short-yardage attempts as Barrett, but was even more efficient. Curtis Samuel only had six short-yardage runs, but converted all six of them.

Barrett vs. Tebow

I can’t imagine any quarterback — outside of maybe one of Dan Mullen’s quarterbacks — will ever have as high of a percentage of his team’s short-yardage conversion attempts as Tim Tebow did during his final seasons at Florida. He had over 54% of his team’s attempts both years, still getting the first down on over 72% of those carries!

When Barrett lined up in an empty set on third-and-short in 2017, everyone in the stadium knew what was coming. That was even more so for Tebow. But, Barrett did have the edge in conversion percentage in 2017 — converting an incredible 77.8% of his runs compared to Tebow’s best of 76.5%.