Ohio State running back Mike Weber is looking for motivation ahead of the 2017 season, and as is typically the case for broke college kids, acquiring free food is always a primary goal.
Which might be why Weber is looking to get a free meal out of Penn State running back Saquon Barkley and LSU running back Derrius Guice. Weber took to the tweets to issue a challenge to Barkley and Guice, the gist of which is, whichever back rushes for the least amount of yards in 2017 has to buy the other two dinner.
Both Barkley and Guice jumped at the chance.
Now, what would a friendly wager between competitors be if we didn't try to handicap it ourselves?
I think the popular pick to finish first would be Guice. He wasn't even the technical starter at LSU last season and he rushed for 1,387 yards at a clip of 7.58 per carry. That yards per carry average blew away both Weber's 6.02 mark (1,096 yards total) and Barkley's 5.50 (1,496 yards). So, based on those numbers, I think it's safe to say that barring an injury, Guice isn't likely to finish last. That being said, Guice will be playing under a new offensive coordinator in Matt Canada, and while Canada likes to run the ball, he may decide to mix up his ball-carriers more than LSU had been last year with Guice and Leonard Fournette.
Still, I think Guice is the safest bet to finish top two.
After that, I have to lean toward Barkley avoiding the dinner tab. While his yards per carry was lower than Weber's, I just believe he has a more solid standing within the Penn State offense. I mean, look at how Ohio State has typically done things on offense since Urban Meyer came to Columbus. There are a lot of mouths to feed on that Ohio State offense, and I don't see that changing in 2017.
Which means that Weber will likely see a lot fewer touches than both Guice and Barkley yet again, severely hampering his ability to surpass either in yardage totals.
So it looks like Weber may have just offered to buy both Guice and Barkley dinner.
The good news is the NCAA will probably sense that some of its players are having fun and put an end to it before the season starts anyway.