Top Five College Football Players Wearing Number Three: A Definitive Ranking

Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.

And welcome to another edition of our jersey series.

We're going to go into the college football realm, a very difficult one to do indeed of identifying the greatest players at each jersey number in college football throughout history.

So this is kind of a big deal because college teams have been wearing number jerseys for about the Last hundred and one hundred and two years, I guess maybe a little bit more, 105 years even.

So we are going to go through and try to find and identify them and we also ask for your help.

If you hear of a, don't hear of a name that should be on our list and you think should be, why don't you send us that pigskindispatchmail.com or comment on your favorite podcast provider.

So, so first we're going to talk about some schools that are honor the jersey number three.

And the first one that comes up is the Utah Tech Trailblazers.

This makes the number a symbol of specific character and leadership qualities within the team.

When Mr. Rinehart suddenly passed away, the team wants to memorialize him and keep his spirit alive by honoring that number three with the top player who represents him.

Another instance of a celebrated number three jersey is Hofstra University who retired Wayne Sherbet's number three jersey.

If you remember Wayne Shurbett, wide receiver most famously with the New York Jets.

National Football League had a great career at Hofstra and they decided to retire that number three jersey.

The University of Notre Dame also has had some great number threes.

They've had some great players as Joe Montana, Rick Meyer, Darius Walker, Ron palace and Michael Floyd, all of whom had record breaking offensive players as long as there was a plethora of other number threes over the course of time.

But those are the big hitters on that, so that's held in very high regard.

And the USC Trojans, yeah, Southern Cal has officially retired the number for Heisman winning quarterback Carson Palmer.

So tremendous athlete he was.

And of course he was another New York Jet wide receiver, played in the NFL most famously, you know, throw me the damn Ball I think was the name of his book or was his model or something there mantra of coming in.

But yeah, interesting folks there.

Now Joe Montana we talked about, you know, hall of Fame quarterback.

We're number three with the iconic Irish program making it famous in his junior season he took the Irish to a national championship victory over Texas making the Irish number one team in the nation.

Some other notable players that were Sterling Shepard of Oklahoma.

Shepard was a consistently explosive wide receiver for the Sooners finishing his collegiate career among the program's top three all time leaders in both receptions and receiving yards.

He provided a reliable and dynamic target for the Sooners offense throughout his four seasons in Norman, Oklahoma.

We got that number three from Carson Palmer and was drafted the first round the National Football League by the Minnesota Vikings.

Another very important player in wearing the number three was Alabama's Trent Richardson.

He remains one of the most decorated running backs in Alabama Crimson Tide history.

Now Mike Sadler of Michigan State.

This is a really special story.

He according to the number one student athlete in MSU history, he was a two time win winning of that four time academic All American honors, Big Ten Conference Medal of Honor recipient and the Pingle Award from the National Football foundation and College Football hall of Fame's Michigan Chapter.

The awards have been rename the Michael R. Sadler Award for his bravery and you know what he represented.

Marlon Jackson of Michigan A two time all Big Ten and consensus all American, Jackson was a dynamic force in the Michigan Wolverine secondary, earning consensus consensus All American honors while demonstrating rare versatility by excelling both cornerback and safety throughout his career.

He was a foundational piece for the defense that captured two Big Ten championships for Big Blue.

Frank Gore with the Miami Hurricanes Gore's career at the University of Miami was a fierce battle against the devastating knee injuries, but he repeatedly showed up immense grit and talent to return to the field.

He ultimately tallied nearly 2,000 rushing yards for the Hurricanes, proving his resilience before embarking on that legendary and long, lengthy NFL journey.

Now Quinn Blandling Played for the Virginia Cavaliers A four time All ACC selection, Quinn Blandley was a tackling machine for the Cavaliers, leaving the program as the ACC's all time leader in career tackles among defensive backs.

Now that's just some of the famous ones.

Marshall I'm sorry.

London Fletcher Great linebacker in the NFL, but he started Division 3 John Carroll University.

He was a consensus All American linebacker and two time Ohio Athletic Conference Player of the Year.

Of course, Carson Palmer we talked about.

Finished his collegiate career at USC by leading the Trojans to an 112 record and triumphant victory in the Orange Bowl.

And Palmer is our only Heisman Trophy winner that wore the number three.

Adrian Peterson.

Georgia Southern retired Adrian Peterson's number three jersey.

Adrian Peterson a defensive back, not Adrian Peterson, that was the running back, but still a great player.

Adrian Peterson, he is in the College Football hall of Fame.

And word number three at Georgia Southern, Anthony Poindexter also wore jersey number three and he was a two time consensus All American safety at Virginia whose impactful collegiate career was tragically cut short by severe knee injury during his senior season.

Then we had Danny Woodhead.

Remember this great runner came out and played for the New England Patriots.

Well, he was a Division 2 legend at Chadron State where he broke numerous NCAA Division 2 rushing records.

And he was a two time Harlan Hill Trophy winner which is Division 2's equivalent to a Heisman Trophy.

So Danny Woodhead, now you know why he was so good at the National Football League level.

So there we have it.

There's some great candidates that we've talked about.

Hopefully we're not missing any.

Like we told you earlier, if you see some see don't see somebody that we're talking about, please let us know pigskindispatchmail.com we'll give them some recognition after we do some research on them.

Now it's time, I think to choose our top five college football jersey number threes.

We're basing this solely on their college football performance.

And I think number five coming in is Jordan Addison.

You know, we talked about his great career at Pitt and then at usc had some great gaudy numbers and very reliable pass catcher.

Number four.

We come in at Trent Richardson of Alabama.

We told you about a sturdy back.

He was in the national championships that he helped win.

The Coach Saban and the Crimson Tide.

Very reliable back at Alabama and very much of a grinder and yard carrier.

Charlie Berry was very important to the Lafayette Leopards when he played for them and he was so impactful that, you know, he ended up going right into a National Football League team with the Pottsville Maroons.

Charlie Berry is our number three.

Then we come down to our top two.

These are quarterbacks, these are famous people in National Football League, but they were college players before that.

Number two, we're going to place Joe Montana at the number two.

Joe Montana is not in the hall of Fame as of yet for the College Football hall of Fame did not win a Heisman.

That's why we put him at number two, because he did have that national championship.

And at number one, we put Carson Palmer, who is in the College Football hall of Fame and won that Heisman Trophy award and gives him a little bit of an edge over the others.

We have him as our number one player of the jersey number three in college football history.

So this is a dynamic number.

It's always a moving target.

You never know who is going to come up next, what season will bring up number three.

You never know.

That's why football is such a fun thing to do and observe and we'll try to update this as we can.

So we really enjoy having you here today and doing this research on the jersey number threes.

So till next time, everybody have a great gridiron day.

Peeking up at the clock.

The time's running down.

We're going to go into victory formation, take a knee and let this baby run out.

Thanks for joining us.

We'll see you back tomorrow.

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