We’re less than a month away from the opening kickoffs of the Ole Miss Rebels, Southern Miss Golden Eagles and Mississippi State Bulldogs’ 2023 football seasons, with a host of tantalizing matchups and players to keep an eye on in Hattiesburg, Oxford, and Starkville. With retail Mississippi sports betting available, there is plenty to be excited about this upcoming football season.
Ahead of the teams’ respective season openers, the collective eyes of the nation’s football fans are set squarely upon a host of Mississippi running backs, including Frank Gore Jr. of USM and Ole Miss sophomore Quinshon Judkins.
With the college football season beginning at the end of August, BetMississippi.com utilized Google Trends to find the college football running backs with the most search interest for the 2023-2024 Season.
Most Search Interest For CFB Running Backs For 2023
The results were taken from the last 90 days from April 25th to July 25th. The Heisman odds were taken from BetMGM on July 25th.
Auburn RB Jarquez Hunter was removed due to his potential suspension pushing his search interest up.
Where Gore Jr., Judkins Rank Nationally In Search Interest
The son of five-time Pro Bowler Frank Gore Sr. is the leader in the Mississippi running back search interest derby, with a score of 16 overall.
Gore ranks in a tie for third nationally among college backs by that metric, alongside Michigan’s Donovan Edwards and behind Blake Corum of Michigan (23) and Penn State’s Nicholas Singleton (18).
Gore is one of two backs on the national top 10 to not be on the Heisman odds board, alongside Baylor’s Richard Reese, showing how far he’ll have to come to have his on-field exploits match his off-field popularity.
The junior out of Miami is coming off a 1,382-yard, nine-touchdown campaign as a sophomore in 2022, with north of 2,800 rushing yards in his first three seasons with the Golden Eagles.
Up the road in Oxford, the Rebels’ Judkins sits seventh nationally in search interest score (14), ranking in a tie for second among backs in Heisman odds, at +6600.
That hype isn’t much of a surprise, given Judkins’ 1,567-yard tour de force on the ground last season under head coach Lane Kiffin, as college football fans expect the Pike Road native to churn and burn his way past opposing defenses this fall.
Still, both Gore Jr. and Judkins are among the most hyped backs in the country entering the 2023 college football season, which must be a point of pride for fans of the Golden Eagles and Rebels as the grind of summer meets the unbridled hope of fall in the Magnolia State.
