RallyNorth.net

Making sense of Tarr's numbers can be sticky stuff

Friday, November, 16 By Phil Stacey
Sports editor

Time to get a few things off my mind | and off my desk | as we gear up for the end of football season and get ready for winter sports to begin in a week-and-a-half:

Just when you wondered what else we could tell you about him, here are some Bobby Tarr factoids you may not know as the most prolific runner in the long and glorious history of high school football on the North Shore gets ready to play his final game Thanksgiving morning when Bishop Fenwick hosts Austin Prep:

• With 2,413 yards this season, Tarr is just 101 yards away from breaking his own area record of 2,513 yards, set last season. He could do so in fewer carries, too, as he's 25 behind last year's pace of 259 carries for the year.

• Tarr is averaging a mind-boggling 10.3 yards every time he takes a handoff this fall.

• The past two seasons, Tarr (390) has scored two-thirds of his team's total points (581).

• His game-by-game rushing totals in 10 games this season: 209, 212, 150, 192, 287, 199, 325, 230, 238 and 312.

• It's a day for the record books when any running back breaks 200 yards in a game. Tarr has done it an amazing 16 times the last two years.

• On four separate occasions, he's run for over 300 yards in a single game, including a ridiculous 372 yards last Thanksgiving vs. Austin Prep.

• He'd need another monster performance on the holiday | 360 yards rushing, to be precise | but it's conceivable that Tarr could do this and actually pass the North Shore's second all-time leading rusher, Bernie Adell of Ipswich, by 1,000 yards all-time. Try to wrap your befuddled brain around that one.

So the question that must be asked | "Can he actually rush for 400 yards on Thanksgiving?" | isn't as preposterous as you might think. Colleague (and Fenwick expert) Matt Jenkins believes Tarr has a shot, especially if it's the high scoring, back-and-forth affair that many expect between the Crusaders and Cougars.

About the only thing Tarr hasn't done is break the state's single-game rushing record; that's 425 yards by Brandon Guy of Lynn English six years ago against Swampscott.