Yahoo Sports College football rushing record: Can Boise State's Ashton Jeanty break Barry Sanders' record?
Even by the program’s lofty standards, the 2024 college football season has been a memorable one for Boise State.
The Broncos enter Friday’s Mountain West championship game against No. 19 UNLV with an 11-1 record and a No. 10 spot in both the US LBM Coaches Poll and the College Football Playoff selection committee rankings. With a win at home against the Rebels, Boise State will move on to the 12-team playoff, where it’s well-positioned to earn a first-round bye and an automatic spot into the national quarterfinals.
That success has been made possible by a broader team effort, but one player in particular has stood out.
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Running back Ashton Jeanty has been an offensive force for coach Spencer Danielson’s team, carrying a Broncos offense with the kinds of numbers that have been produced by only a select handful of players in college football history. As the leading rusher in the FBS by a wide margin, Jeanty is widely considered Travis Hunter’s primary competitor for the Heisman Trophy.
In reality, Jeanty is chasing more than just the Heisman and a playoff berth.
With his output this season, Jeanty is within reach of one of the most celebrated benchmarks in the sport’s history — Barry Sanders’ single-season FBS rushing yardage record.
Here’s a closer look at Jeanty’s 2024 season, where he sits in the FBS record books and whether or not he can surpass Sanders:
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College football single-season rushing record
Nearly 40 years after his iconic 1988 season, Barry Sanders remains the single-season rushing yardage leader in FBS history.
As a junior at Oklahoma State in 1988, Sanders rushed for 2,628 yards and 37 touchdowns while averaging 7.6 yards per carry.
There’s a strong argument that those already impressive numbers should be even higher. The NCAA didn’t include bowl stats as part of a player’s official yardage total until 2002, meaning that Sanders’ 222 rushing yards and five touchdowns in a Holiday Bowl victory against Wyoming were not part of his record-setting total. With that game, Sanders’ season totals jump to 2,850 yards and 42 touchdowns. Sanders also reached his marks during an 11-game regular season (college football now has a 12-game regular season).
With Jeanty now joining Sanders in the top five, here’s a look at the highest individual rushing totals in a single season in FBS history:
1. Barry Sanders, Oklahoma State (1988): 2,628 yards
2. Melvin Gordon, Wisconsin (2014): 2,587 yards
3. Kevin Smith, UCF (2007): 2,567 yards
4. Marcus Allen, USC (1981): 2,342 yards
5. Ashton Jeanty, Boise State (2024): 2,288 yards
6. Rashaad Penny, San Diego State (2017): 2,248 yards
7. Derrick Henry, Alabama (2015): 2,219 yards
8. Jonathan Taylor, Wisconsin (2018): 2,194 yards
9. Troy Davis, Iowa State (1996): 2,185 yards
10. Andre Williams, Boston College (2013): 2,177 yards
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Ashton Jeanty stats
Entering Friday’s game against UNLV, Jeanty has rushed for 2,288 yards and 28 touchdowns while averaging 7.3 yards per carry during what has been a stellar junior season at Boise State.
He also has 18 catches for 102 yards and a touchdown.
Jeanty comfortably leads all FBS players in rushing yards, with the next-closest player, North Carolina’s Omarion Hampton, 628 yards behind him. Jeanty has rushed for at least 127 yards in each of his team’s 12 games this season, with that season-low mark coming in a 56-14 victory against Portland State on September 21 in which he didn’t log a carry in the second half.
Given that output, it’s possible that Jeanty breaks Sanders’ record.
He heads into the Mountain West championship game 340 yards behind Sanders’ official mark from 1988. He’s highly unlikely to get there against the Rebels, who held him to 128 yards and 3.9 yards per carry in a Boise State victory on Oct. 25, but if the Broncos win Friday and earn a spot in the playoff, he’d have another game to add to his already gaudy total. If Boise State loses and misses out on the playoff, it’s possible that Jeanty, a projected first-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, would opt out of a bowl game.
Jeanty is averaging 190.7 rushing yards per game, which puts him on pace to surpass Sanders if he plays in two more games this season.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: College football rushing record: Can Ashton Jeanty break Barry Sanders' record?
