Presented by POOL SCOUTS.
This Day In Sports…December 30, 1988:
The final game in the college career of Barry Sanders, who leads Oklahoma State to a 62-14 rout of Wyoming at the Holiday Bowl in San Diego. OSU was in control 24-7 early in the third quarter after two touchdown runs by Sanders. Then the Heisman Trophy winner really went off, adding scoring runs of 67, 1 and 10 yards before the period ended. When it was done, Sanders had rushed for 222 yards and five TDs. Bowl game stats didn’t count in individual totals back then, so Sanders’ season ended at 2,628 rushing yards, a college football record that still stands.
Interestingly enough, Oklahoma State’s quarterback was junior Mike Gundy, the guy who would later be head coach of the Cowboys for almost 20 years (ending three games into this season). Gundy, who would become OSU’s career passing the following year, was no slouch in the Holiday Bowl, going 20-of-24 for 315 yards and three touchdowns. Gundy was 21 years old at the time—by the time he was 40, he was a man (if you know, you know).
Sanders’ 1988 superlatives are endless. He began the season with a 100-yard kickoff return, the second straight season he had done that. Sanders averaged—that’s averaged—239 yards per game rushing at 7.6 yards per carry and had four 300-yard performances. Despite piling up 344 carries in 11 games, Sanders as still used as Oklahoma State’s return man on punts and kickoffs. He scored 39 total touchdowns, putting up at least two TDs in each game and three in eight of them.
The story of Sanders’ legendary season cannot go without an Ashton Jeanty footnote. It wasn’t but two games into the 2024 season—after the Boise State great had rushed for 267 yards at Georgia Southern and 192 at Oregon—that the subject of Sanders’ 2,628 yards was broached. The chase lasted all fall as Jeanty amassed six 200-yard games and topped 100 in all the others. He had the benefit of three more counting games to get there, and he almost did. Jeanty ended up 27 yards short of the mark, rushing for 2,601 yards, an unbreakable school record.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
