Cardinal’s McCaffrey in pursuit of history.
Cardinal tailback needs 216 yards to top Sanders’ all-purpose mark of 3,250
The spread offense has laid waste to many of major college football’s offensive records, but one has stood strong against the changing times: 3,250 allpurpose yards, set by Okla- homa State’s Barry Sanders during what many consider the greatest individual season in the sport’s history.
It took more than a quartercentury, but Sanders’ all-purpose yards record is finally in jeopardy, albeit with a significant caveat.
Stanford tailback Christian McCaffrey needs 216 rushing, receiving and return yards to eclipse the mark Sanders established on his way to the 1988
Heisman Trophy — the year he averaged an astounding 237.5 rushing yards per game.
If McCaffrey doesn’t get the needed yards Saturday in the Pac-12 championship, he will have another shot in Stanford’s bowl game.
“Barry Sanders was the best ever,” he said. “And he did it in a lot less games.”
Not a lot fewer, but enough to make Sanders’ record seem otherworldly.
McCaffrey leads the nation in all-purpose yards with an average of 252.9 per game. He has hit the 300-yard mark four times. Yet his average is 40 yards per game short of Sanders’ incredible pace.
Put another way: McCaffrey will need 13 games to break the record Sanders set in 11 — bowl games didn’t count back then — and he might need 14.
“He was unbelievable, so fast, so quick,” said McCaffrey, who has studied video of Sanders. “He just made guys look silly.”
What does Sanders think of McCaffrey’s pursuit?
“Barry wishes Christian and Stanford the best of luck,” his agent, J.B. Bernstein, said in an email, “but he is currently not doing any media.”
(Sanders’ son, Barry, a backup tailback for Stan- ford, wasn’t available for an interview on the topic.)
Stanford coach David Shaw was a student at James Logan High School in Union City during Sanders’ amazing season, in which he rushed for 300 yards on four occasions.
“I didn’t see much of it, because TV was different back then,” Shaw said, “but I remember seeing highlights and thinking, ‘Is that real?’ He looked like he was playing a different game than everybody else.”