Jonathan Taylor is very good at football

This week, Wisconsin’s star tailback Jonathan Taylor will be held to zero yards rushing, which is only a bold prediction until you see the Badgers don’t play this week. Let’s spend this time looking where he stands in the college football history books.

Note - all stats taken from the wonderful time-sink that is Sports-Reference.com

Most Yards Through Any Two Seasons

One of the lines Wisconsin’s PR department is fond of using to promote Taylor’s Heisman campaign is that nobody in the history of college football has rushed for more yards through their first two seasons. But heck, there’s a lot of ways to combine two seasons! How does his 4171 look all time?

That’s some spectacular company. You have:

1. The guy who set the single-game rushing record in 3 quarters and made an entire stadium feel like children, unchecked by the injuries of experience and failure.
2. The guy who will be forever in the top 5 for single-season Big 8 rushing, and currently holds the top spot for Big 12 rushing.
3. The protagonist of our story.
4. The all-time leader in rushing.

Oh, another leaderboard that involves rushing that features a lot of Badgers near the top, look at that didn’t even notice.

What makes Jonathan Taylor particularly unique is that he’s the dominant running back as a freshman. Barry Sanders’ 1988 season is the current single season record, but in 1987 Thurman Thomas was the main workhorse for Oklahoma State. Melvin Gordon’s sophomore year saw him splitting carries with James White. For every multi-year workhorse like Ricky Williams or Ron Dayne, college football has multiple backs that only shined bright for one season.

Vaulting Up The Leaderboard

After a comparatively workmanlike pair of games, he still jumps over 30 spots in the career listing. Notable names include ‘Tecmo’ Bo Jackson, Ian Johnson from Boise State over Oklahoma fame, and Troy Davis, who was very recently featured in this very article.

We at Bucky’s 5th Quarter will continue to follow Taylor’s ascent up the all-time leaderboards in every rushing statistic throughout the season.