Will Michigan's single game rushing record ever be broken?
November 16th will mark the 50 year anniversary of one of the greatest individual performances in Michigan Football history.
Ron Johnson, Michigan All-American RB and future All-Pro RB with the New York Giants set Michigan's all-time rushing record.
It was a nasty weather day at a half-full Michigan Stadium. Only 51,117 witnessed history that day. The weather featured sleet, a driving rain and was 45 degrees at kickoff according to the boxscore.
Ron Johnson ran for 347 yards on 31 carries, averaging 11.2 yards per rush. His 5 rushing touchdowns are also an official Michigan single game record that have stood the test of time.
With only one player since going over 300 yards (Biakabutuka in 1995 with 313), will this record ever be broken? In the era that we are in where more than one tailback is featured?
His record of 5 TDs has been threatened. There is a logjam of players who have had 4 TD games with the most recent being Fitz Toussaint vs Indiana in 2013.
September 7th, 2018 at 3:25 PM ^
Maybe.
September 7th, 2018 at 7:27 PM ^
To be clear, this is only a record from the post-1949 era; Michigan and other schools didn't maintain modern statistics prior to that. But it is almost certainly true that some of Yost's point-a-minute teams featured backs like Willie Heston who ran for more than 350 yards. Albert Herrnstein once scored 7 TDs in a game, and scored 5 or more on 4 different occasions.
September 7th, 2018 at 3:26 PM ^
Perhaps.
September 7th, 2018 at 3:26 PM ^
Possibly.
September 7th, 2018 at 10:44 PM ^
Not with the current OL.
September 7th, 2018 at 3:26 PM ^
Theoretically.
September 7th, 2018 at 3:45 PM ^
Inexplicably.
September 7th, 2018 at 3:29 PM ^
Perchance.
September 7th, 2018 at 6:01 PM ^
peradventure
September 7th, 2018 at 3:29 PM ^
Indubitably
September 7th, 2018 at 3:30 PM ^
Are you posting this just to prove we once had a better OL and RBs than Wisconsin?
(BTW...those are sweet UW helmets).
September 7th, 2018 at 3:32 PM ^
It won't happen during regulation time but I could see it in a crazy OT game.
On a side note all my UM running backs in NCAA 14 have.
September 7th, 2018 at 3:35 PM ^
And now I'm daydreaming about the 313 game. Must be time to watch it again.
September 7th, 2018 at 3:37 PM ^
Been there, saw that, and it was VERY impressive. Or at least I saw half of it. That was the first and only game I left at half time.
September 7th, 2018 at 3:42 PM ^
Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the oldest man on the internet!
September 7th, 2018 at 4:23 PM ^
I don’t know about that. I was 16 when I saw Ron Johnson run wild in the mud. It was miserable, but my childhood chum and I stayed into the 4th quarter before we packed it in. You knew that something special was happening. FWIW, my buddy and I still go to the games together. Seen a lot at the corner of Stadium and Main.
September 7th, 2018 at 4:14 PM ^
Yes, somebody on the board older than I am! The earliest I can remember watching any Michigan game was the 1970 Rose Bowl on TV when I was 10. What's even more amazing about Johnson's performance was he did it in those awful conditions.
September 7th, 2018 at 11:11 PM ^
I was there.
It was one of the top three worst weather days I have ever seen in Michigan Stadium. Rain, sleet, snow in succession going sideways most of the time. And Bump pulled Johnson out of that game so early! He could have run for 400+ yards.
I still have the program, with my 12 year-old handwritten note of Ron Johnson's rushing yardage for the day. Fittingly, it was a program with Johnson himself on the cover.
September 8th, 2018 at 1:43 AM ^
Then you had to walk uphill on Main, both ways, to get back to your automobile.
I know it's true because I did that, but only cuz I was drunk and couldn't find my car.
September 7th, 2018 at 3:38 PM ^
I don’t know, but we’ll see.
September 7th, 2018 at 3:40 PM ^
Seems conceivable. Maybe THE_KNOWLEDGE can tell us when it'll happen?
September 7th, 2018 at 3:41 PM ^
"Will Michigan's single game rushing record ever be broken?"
Not with this offensive line.
September 7th, 2018 at 3:43 PM ^
Or our RB's if we're being honest.
September 7th, 2018 at 4:18 PM ^
That's a bit unfair! To our line and our RB's!
If you stretch your mind back to the distant, distant past of 2017, you might remember this line in a box score:
Higdon, Karan: 16 carries, 200 yards
Evans, Chris: 13 carries, 191 yards
If one of them had been injured, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
September 7th, 2018 at 3:44 PM ^
As someone who watched much of the Johnson game in person, it's important to remember he only played one play in the fourth quarter. He opened the quarter by going 49 yards for his fifth TD and then was removed from the game. The Chicago Tribune at the time described it as "the most explosive display of running in the proud history of the Big Ten conference". Johnson went on to be drafted in the first round by the Giants and became their first 1000 yard runner. Sadly, he now suffers from Alzheimer's.
September 7th, 2018 at 3:48 PM ^
Damn, that's sad. He was diagnosed young too.
September 7th, 2018 at 3:50 PM ^
Athletic department should honor him at the Indiana game. It'll be 50 years ago almost exactly since the game is 11/17.
September 7th, 2018 at 3:50 PM ^
It didn't happen vs Delaware St in '09.... I'm going to say that record is safe.
September 7th, 2018 at 3:54 PM ^
Even Al Bundy couldn't do it, so it's doubtable...
September 7th, 2018 at 3:54 PM ^
Mayhaps
September 7th, 2018 at 4:17 PM ^
Probably, considering a decent number of guys have broken 350 yards in college football recently. Hell, Michigan combined for nearly 500 rushing yards against Rutgers in 2016, and both Evans and Higdon went over 100 yards on under 15 carries each. So totally could see a world where Michigan is crushing some team and you just keep giving the ball to a guy because he's getting huge chunks of yards so easily.
September 7th, 2018 at 4:17 PM ^
It's unlikely in today's football environment with more emphasis on the passing game. Even if one of our running backs had a huge game against a lousy opponent, the likelihood is he'd be pulled from the game way before he breaks the record in order to give other guys a chance to play.
September 7th, 2018 at 4:23 PM ^
who's to say?
September 7th, 2018 at 4:39 PM ^
As long as Rutgers is around, the possibility of breaking records exists
September 7th, 2018 at 4:44 PM ^
Some of us watched that game from the stands. That record will never fall, what people don't realize is that RoJo was running to stay warm.
September 7th, 2018 at 4:54 PM ^
Yes. No idea when, but it'll happen.
Records were made to be broken. Even DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak record will be broken someday. May not be for a long, long time. But it will happen.
September 7th, 2018 at 5:41 PM ^
Post Jim when we figure a starting Big ten o line out
September 7th, 2018 at 5:50 PM ^
I just can't imagine one player getting the 106 carries needed (at 3.3 ypc) to break it...but who knows
September 7th, 2018 at 6:06 PM ^
“ snarky o line comment”
September 7th, 2018 at 6:30 PM ^
Not a chance
September 7th, 2018 at 6:34 PM ^
Not until we have a decent offensive line and a legit running back again.
September 7th, 2018 at 8:35 PM ^
Possibly now that we have OT. I'm surprised Denard didnt top that in any games.
September 7th, 2018 at 8:45 PM ^
Nope. Never. No chance in hell. Next question.
September 7th, 2018 at 9:32 PM ^
Maybe. Anally.
September 7th, 2018 at 10:22 PM ^
I'm 99% sure I watched this game on TV, as I was only 10 years old and then primarily a Notre Dame fan due to my Catholic upbringing. I loved Ara Parsegian and hated Spartie already, those things I know for sure, but I was already developing an interest in Michigan Football after watching the 1965 Rose Bowl (my first recollection of rooting for Michigan).
Is there a way to verify this game being on TV? Back in those days of of only 3 TV networks, I believe teams were limited to no more than 2 regular season televised games and no more than 3 over two seasons. But I pretty distinctly recall watching Ron Johnson running for humongous yardage in the rain and mud on TV.
September 7th, 2018 at 11:20 PM ^
Yes; it was on tv. I saw the game live, and very late in the game my grandfather left with me in tow, and walked back to Yost Fieldhouse to try to dry out and warm up. Johnson had already left the game. We got into Yost, which in those days had a gigantic open floor and up on the wall was a tiny 19" (?) black and white tv set with the game on. I saw the game live, and saw the last minutes on a tv. There were about 50 of us standing and watching that tiny black and white television.
September 8th, 2018 at 4:18 AM ^
Yes, it was on TV. I watched it from home, crying through much of the first half because, as I mentioned below, my cub scout troop was all set to go and then backed out because of the weather. The more yards he ran for and TDs he scored, the more pissed off I became. Never missed another home game for over a decade, until I went away to college.