25 college football records that will never be broken

It’s nearly impossible to describe the explosive offensive season Barry Sanders had in 1988. It was something college football had never seen before, and will likely never see again.

In his first season as a starter at Oklahoma State because he spent the first two seasons of his collegiate career behind Thurman Thomas on the depth chart, Sanders produced the greatest single-season performance in the history of the game with 2,628 rushing yards and 37 touchdowns in 11 regular season games – both of which are still records, for an unbreakable average of 238.9 yards per game. That official gross total doesn’t even include the 222 rushing yards and five touchdowns Sanders scored in the Holiday Bowl because the NCAA did not yet recognize bowl game statistics.

Because it occurred in only 11 games, it’s conceivable that Sanders’ records of 2,628 yards and 37 touchdowns (or even his 12-game totals of 2,850 yards and 42 TDs) will be surpassed because college football teams regularly play 12 regular season games, plus a bowl game, with the possibility of conference title games (that didn’t exist in 1988), and potentially two games in the college football playoff.

If a running back played a 15-game schedule, in which all of his production counted towards official NCAA statistics, he could break that record with an average of 190 yards per game – nearly 50 yards fewer than Sanders piled up on average in 1988. Last season, Wisconsin running back Melvin Gordon III came closer than anyone has to Sanders’ single-season rushing record when he ran for 2,587 yards. However, it took Gordon 14 games (including the Big Ten Championship game and the Outback Bowl), for an average of 184.8 per contest. 

Next: 17 Rushing Yards Allowed Per Game