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Maurice Jones-Drew, Miami Hurricanes, making history

Posted by Chase Stuart on Sunday, November 1, 2009

Maurice Jones-Drew rushed for an incredible 177 yards on just 8 carries against the Titans yesterday. Jones-Drew rushed for an 80-yard score on his first touch from scrimmage... in the second quarter. On the first play of the second half, Jones-Drew ran 79 yards for his second and last touchdown of the day. Jones-Drew joined Barry Sanders and Frank Gore as just the third running back ever with two 75-yard rushing touchdowns in the same game.

Jones-Drew's 177 rushing yards were the most by any running back with just eight carries in a game since 1960 (and probably ever). In fact, no one with fewer than 13 carries in a game has rushed for as many yards in the last 50+ years. The table below shows the most yards gained on the ground in a game from 1960 to 2008, for X number of carries:

player year tm date opp rsh rshyd rshtd
Jamie Morris 1988 was 12/17/1988 cin 45 152 0
Rudi Johnson 2003 cin 11/9/2003 htx 43 182 2
Terrell Davis 1997 den 10/26/1997 buf 42 207 1
Franco Harris 1976 pit 10/17/1976 cin 41 143 2
Walter Payton 1977 chi 11/20/1977 min 40 275 1
Corey Dillon 1997 cin 12/4/1997 oti 39 246 4
Edgerrin James 2000 clt 10/15/2000 sea 38 219 3
Mike Anderson 2000 den 12/3/2000 nor 37 251 4
Cookie Gilchrist 1963 buf 12/8/1963 nyj 36 243 5
Shaun Alexander 2001 sea 11/11/2001 rai 35 266 3
Eric Dickerson 1985 ram 1/4/1986 dal 34 248 2
Earl Campbell 1980 oti 10/19/1980 tam 33 203 0
Willie Parker 2006 pit 12/7/2006 cle 32 223 1
LaDainian Tomlinson 2003 sdg 12/28/2003 rai 31 243 2
Adrian Peterson 2007 min 11/4/2007 sdg 30 296 3
O.J. Simpson 1976 buf 11/25/1976 det 29 273 2
Napoleon Kaufman 1997 rai 10/19/1997 den 28 227 1
Ricky Williams 2002 mia 12/1/2002 buf 27 228 2
Willie Ellison 1971 ram 12/5/1971 nor 26 247 1
Billy Cannon 1961 oti 12/10/1961 nyj 25 216 3
Clinton Portis 2002 den 12/29/2002 crd 24 228 2
Tiki Barber 2006 nyg 12/30/2006 was 23 234 3
Corey Dillon 2000 cin 10/22/2000 den 22 278 2
LeShon Johnson 1996 crd 9/22/1996 nor 21 214 2
Jim Brown 1963 cle 9/22/1963 dal 20 232 2
DeAngelo Williams 2008 car 12/8/2008 tam 19 186 2
Bo Jackson 1987 rai 11/30/1987 sea 18 221 2
O.J. Simpson 1975 buf 11/17/1975 cin 17 197 2
Wilbur Jackson 1977 sfo 11/27/1977 nor 16 190 2
Derrick Ward 2008 nyg 12/21/2008 car 15 215 0
Clinton Portis 2003 den 11/23/2003 chi 14 165 0
Keith Lincoln 1963 sdg 1/5/1964 nwe 13 206 1
Michael Vick 2006 atl 11/26/2006 nor 12 166 0
Abner Haynes 1960 kan 11/24/1960 nyj 11 157 2
Michael Vick 2002 atl 12/1/2002 min 10 173 2
Leroy Harris 1979 phi 11/25/1979 gnb 9 137 0
Paul Lowe 1960 sdg 10/28/1960 nwe 8 137 1
Napoleon Kaufman 1996 rai 9/22/1996 sdg 7 116 0
Steve Broussard 1997 sea 10/5/1997 oti 6 138 2
Cannonball Butler 1968 atl 12/8/1968 det 5 87 1
Essex Johnson 1971 cin 12/5/1971 cle 4 109 1
Herschel Walker 1994 phi 11/27/1994 atl 3 98 2
Brian Mitchell 2000 phi 10/1/2000 atl 2 105 1
Joey Galloway 1995 sea 11/12/1995 jax 1 86 1

Move aside, Paul Lowe: Maurice Jones-Drew is now the leader at the 8-carry spot; Lowe's former teammate Keith Lincoln was the only player on the above list to set the mark in a playoff game.

MJD wasn't the only player in the news yesterday. In the first quarter against the Colts, Frank Gore rushed for a touchdown. No big deal, right? Except it was the 113th straight week in the NFL that a former Miami Hurricane scored a touchdown. Is that a record? I'm not sure and wouldn't be surprised if it was; unfortunately, I haven't yet had the time to research that question. What I did have time to do was look at the first 105 weeks of the streak (i.e., before the 2009 season) and see how the other colleges stacked up.

The first table lists each college along with the number of weeks where at least one of its former players scored a touchdown in the 105 week stretch between week 15 of the 2002 season and week 17 of last season:

# college
105 miami(fl)
91  floridast
90  tennessee
90  florida
87  michiganst
85  ohiost
81  michigan
80  georgia
76  notredame
75  virginia
73  pennst
73  auburn
72  lsu
72  pittsburgh
72  tcu
70  texas
70  oregonst
70  marshall
69  wisconsin
68  alabama
65  ucla
64  washington
64  oregon
64  nocarolinast
62  usc
62  virginiatech
59  syracuse
56  nocarolina
54  westvirginia
52  tennchattanooga
51  nebraska
50  california
48  colorado
47  utah
47  fresnost
47  kentst
46  villanova
46  arizonast
46  mississippist
45  centralflorida
44  socarolina
43  mississippi
43  texasam
42  memphis
42  iowa
40  arizona
39  oklahoma
38  minnesota
37  georgiatech
36  maryland
36  alcornst
36  utahst

The next table shows how many total touchdowns players from the top colleges have scored over that 105-week span:

total college
442 miami(fl)
220 tennessee
209 floridast
183 florida
177 ohiost
170 michiganst
168 lsu
155 pennst
147 texas
147 michigan
144 georgia
138 notredame
136 pittsburgh
136 virginia
134 oregonst
133 auburn
127 tcu
125 wisconsin
121 marshall
120 usc
115 alabama
109 ucla
105 syracuse
100 washington
92  virginiatech
89  nocarolina
87  oregon
87  nocarolinast
80  westvirginia
80  california
79  nebraska
75  villanova
72  utah
68  colorado
68  tennchattanooga
66  fresnost
66  minnesota
65  arizonast
64  socarolina
64  oklahoma
62  centralflorida
62  memphis
60  kentst
58  mississippi
58  iowa
57  texasam
57  arizona
57  mississippist
52  georgiatech
50  maryland

Nine times during the first 112 weeks of the streak saw the former Hurricanes held to just one touchdown; in most weeks, though, they've scored time and time again. The full list, here.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 1st, 2009 at 11:53 PM and filed under Trivia. Follow comments here with the RSS 2.0 feed. Skip to the end and leave a response. Trackbacks are closed.

13 Responses to “Maurice Jones-Drew, Miami Hurricanes, making history”

  1. Andy said:

    Jesus, poor Jamie Morris. 45 carries at less than 3.5 a clip. He has the most carries and the 11th worst rushing total on the whole chart.

    Posted on 02-Nov-09 at 12:04 am | Permalink
  2. MattieShoes said:

    I magine poor Jamie Morris doesn't have a whole lot of competition for the 45 rush attempts spot though... :-) I just checked and he is indeed the only player since 1960 to have 45 attempts.
    .
    Another weird thing. He had 45 attempts that game, and another with 38 attempts for 88 yards. That's 1/3 of his total carries for his career, in two games.
    .
    Carries to YPC there is almost a perfect power regression
    YPC = 80.25 * Carries^(-0.7)
    R^2 = .92

    Posted on 02-Nov-09 at 4:21 am | Permalink
  3. Ace Davis said:

    Just thought I'd note that the Browns' Marion Motley gained 188 yards on just 11 carries against the Steelers in 1950. About all the team pride I can muster these days...

    Posted on 02-Nov-09 at 5:31 am | Permalink
  4. JWL said:

    Derrick Alexander just missed the cut because on 12/18/99 he had one carry for 82 yards and a touchdown against the Steelers.

    Posted on 02-Nov-09 at 5:54 am | Permalink
  5. Ryan said:

    With his two touchdowns against Tennessee, Jones-Drew scored his 50th TD in his 54th career game, which I think is the fifth fastest to 50 TD's in a career (Chuck Foreman 44, Jim Brown 46, Marcus Allen 49, Barry Sanders 53). The even more interesting thing is that MJD has done it with a grand total of 11 starts in his career, whereas the other four players only had 6 games where they didn't start combined.

    Posted on 02-Nov-09 at 9:51 am | Permalink
  6. Richie said:

    Is the podcast ever coming back?

    Posted on 02-Nov-09 at 11:16 am | Permalink
  7. Chase Stuart said:

    Hey Richie,

    I'm glad at least one person has enjoyed the podcasts enough to publicly ask for more of them. We've definitely been strapped for time, but at some point, we hope to get another one up. And eventually, we plan to return to more regular podcast sessions.

    Posted on 02-Nov-09 at 3:04 pm | Permalink
  8. shattenjager said:

    I, for one, am glad to hear that, Chase.

    I feel like I'm left hanging for the second half of the '80s All-Decade team. :)

    Posted on 02-Nov-09 at 4:29 pm | Permalink
  9. Richie said:

    I actually find discussion of football history to be just a hair more interesting than cliched discussions of "this weeks games". That's why I love the PFR podcast. I also love the way you guys choose to talk about topics that nobody would normally talk about. Like Erich Barnes.

    Doug left me hanging recently by promising to talk about Timm Rosenbach in an upcoming podcast. Not a guy that gets much discussion - but I had him on my fantasy team once or twice - so hearing more background story on him is interesting to me.

    Posted on 02-Nov-09 at 11:32 pm | Permalink
  10. Chase Stuart said:

    Good to see you're still around, Ace. Good luck this year following your Browns.

    Richie,

    That Rockne-esque pep talk may be what we need to kickstart our podcastin' engines.

    Posted on 03-Nov-09 at 8:33 am | Permalink
  11. Downpuppy said:

    The #2 rushing game ever, Jamal Lewis 295 yds, had the same 30 carries as Peterson's 296.

    Now I can finally tell Napoleon Kaufman (who walked away at 27 to be a preacher) from Napoleon McCallum (who got carried out).

    Posted on 03-Nov-09 at 1:19 pm | Permalink
  12. Downpuppy said:

    I guess it's also worth noting that one reason the Jags lost is that Chris Johnson's 228/24 also makes the list.

    Posted on 03-Nov-09 at 3:09 pm | Permalink
  13. Jason W said:

    Yes, but can you tell him from Napoleon Harris?

    (Seriously, I can believe that Al Davis has a Napoleon Complex, but to draft three guys named "Napoleon" over 20 years? What's up with that?)

    Posted on 03-Nov-09 at 3:11 pm | Permalink

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