Steve0022 Posted June 2, 2010 Posted June 2, 2010 A friend of mine is a big New England Patriots fan and he mentioned that Brandon Tate was the NCAA's all-time combined kick return yardage leader. I told him that was odd because I was under the impression that Buffalo's Leodis McKelvin was. He told me that the TV announcers always credit Tate with this during his games. So I checked online but didn't have the google skills to find a list of career total return yardage in the NCAA. What I did find were several instances of Tate being called the career returns leader, even the quasi encyclopedia, Wikipedia, gave the honor to Tate and mentioned nothing of the sort on the McKelvin page. So I decided to look the stats up myself and do some addition: Leodis McKelvin 3,817 career return yards Brandon Tate 3,523 career return yards Go Bills
DrDawkinstein Posted June 2, 2010 Posted June 2, 2010 nice work, someone needs to edit the wikipedia pages now
Drey Posted June 2, 2010 Posted June 2, 2010 Kevin Robinson (Utah State) has them both beat with 3829.
UticaBill Posted June 2, 2010 Posted June 2, 2010 Are you totaling all returns KO returns, Punt Returns and Int. returns? or just the special teams returns?
headcase Posted June 2, 2010 Posted June 2, 2010 A friend of mine is a big New England Patriots fan and he mentioned that Brandon Tate was the NCAA's all-time combined kick return yardage leader. I told him that was odd because I was under the impression that Buffalo's Leodis McKelvin was. He told me that the TV announcers always credit Tate with this during his games. So I checked online but didn't have the google skills to find a list of career total return yardage in the NCAA. What I did find were several instances of Tate being called the career returns leader, even the quasi encyclopedia, Wikipedia, gave the honor to Tate and mentioned nothing of the sort on the McKelvin page. So I decided to look the stats up myself and do some addition: Leodis McKelvin 3,817 career return yards Brandon Tate 3,523 career return yards Go Bills I don't know where your numbers come from, or where the discrepancy lies, but according to the page 20 of the 2009 NCAA FBS record book, PDF located here, Tate is the career leader. Honestly it doesn't really matter, they were both good at it on the college level, McKelvin has proven it in the NFL, Tate hasn't had the chance yet. SSDD
The Dean Posted June 2, 2010 Posted June 2, 2010 Are you totaling all returns KO returns, Punt Returns and Int. returns? or just the special teams returns? I think that's the real question, here. Define "return yards". Don't forget fumble returns, as well.
The Dean Posted June 2, 2010 Posted June 2, 2010 I don't know where your numbers come from, or where the discrepancy lies, but according to the page 20 of the 2009 NCAA FBS record book, PDF located here, Tate is the career leader. Honestly it doesn't really matter, they were both good at it on the college level, McKelvin has proven it in the NFL, Tate hasn't had the chance yet. SSDD That is for kick (combined punt and kickoff) returns only.
Drey Posted June 2, 2010 Posted June 2, 2010 I don't know what the discrepancy is, either. From McKelvin's bio on the Bills website: "COLLEGE: ...Held the NCAA record with 3,817 total kick return yards before being broken by Kevin Robinson of Utah (3,829)..." According to the stats here (McKelvin), here (Tate), and here (Robinson), Tate is behind both McKelvin and Robinson for total combined yards from punt and kickoff returns. Edit: Also, in the same 2009 record book referenced by SEPatsFan (here), on page 58, Kevin Robinson is listed as 16th for career all purpose yards. If you total the entries for punt returns and kickoff returns on that line, it adds up to 3829 yards, clearly more than Brandon Tate. I've sent an email to the NCAA asking them to explain the discrepancy.
High Mark Posted June 2, 2010 Posted June 2, 2010 I always thought McKelvin had the most career return TDs with 8, not yards. I think thats combined but it may be punt returns only.
Steve0022 Posted June 3, 2010 Author Posted June 3, 2010 I don't know what the discrepancy is, either. From McKelvin's bio on the Bills website: "COLLEGE: ...Held the NCAA record with 3,817 total kick return yards before being broken by Kevin Robinson of Utah (3,829)..." According to the stats here (McKelvin), here (Tate), and here (Robinson), Tate is behind both McKelvin and Robinson for total combined yards from punt and kickoff returns. Edit: Also, in the same 2009 record book referenced by SEPatsFan (here), on page 58, Kevin Robinson is listed as 16th for career all purpose yards. If you total the entries for punt returns and kickoff returns on that line, it adds up to 3829 yards, clearly more than Brandon Tate. I've sent an email to the NCAA asking them to explain the discrepancy. For clarity to the other posters, i was referring to only yards in the punt and kickoff return games. That is interesting, I remember Kevin Robinson at Utah State, and apparently he is the career leader in total return yards. I'm going to extrapolate a little bit and say that the discrepancy comes from someone simply prematurely putting Tate's name in the record book and waiting to fill it in for the new publication. I figure this because Tate was well on his way to setting the record before having his season cut short to injury. Huh so I guess Robinson is the leader, unless someone has another name. Either way though we do sort of beat the Patriots at something.
Nanker Posted June 3, 2010 Posted June 3, 2010 I much prefer The Bills beat the living **** out of them twice each year for the next ten decades.
Drey Posted June 3, 2010 Posted June 3, 2010 I just received a reply from one of the NCAA records staff: Andrey-- Thanks for the note. It looks like it's just an oversight on our part and it's never been brought to our attention before this. I'm saving your e-mail and will use it to remind me to update the record on page 20 when I am editing that section. Thanks for your help and please let me know if you need anything else from our staff. Sincerely, Jeff Williams Assistant Director of Statistics National Collegiate Athletic Association P.O. Box 6222 Indianapolis, IN 46206-6222 jswilliams@ncaa.org
Matt in KC Posted June 3, 2010 Posted June 3, 2010 I just received a reply from one of the NCAA records staff: Andrey-- Thanks for the note. It looks like it's just an oversight on our part and it's never been brought to our attention before this. I'm saving your e-mail and will use it to remind me to update the record on page 20 when I am editing that section. Thanks for your help and please let me know if you need anything else from our staff. Sincerely, Jeff Williams Assistant Director of Statistics National Collegiate Athletic Association P.O. Box 6222 Indianapolis, IN 46206-6222 jswilliams@ncaa.org Well done! It's rare that someone takes that kind of initiative when he has no personal steak in the matter.
The Dean Posted June 3, 2010 Posted June 3, 2010 I just received a reply from one of the NCAA records staff: Andrey-- Thanks for the note. It looks like it's just an oversight on our part and it's never been brought to our attention before this. I'm saving your e-mail and will use it to remind me to update the record on page 20 when I am editing that section. Thanks for your help and please let me know if you need anything else from our staff. Sincerely, Jeff Williams Assistant Director of Statistics National Collegiate Athletic Association P.O. Box 6222 Indianapolis, IN 46206-6222 jswilliams@ncaa.org Well done.
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