Ashton Jeanty stays on pace to break Barry Sanders' 1988 single-season rushing yards and TDs records

Boise State junior running back Ashton Jeanty keeps building on his season-long Heisman Trophy campaign and still owns the top odds to win it, per BetMGM. And he had another standout performance late Saturday in the No. 17 Broncos’ 28-7 road win against Hawai’i.

Jeanty ran for 217 yards and a touchdown on 31 carries, along with 20 receiving yards and another touchdown, against the Rainbow Warriors. It was his third time breaking 200 rushing yards this season, and if he keeps it up, he could do more than contend for the Heisman, help his team get to a Mountain West Conference title and fight for a College Football Playoff spot.

Jeanty entered Week 7’s game against Hawai’i on pace to break two Barry Sanders records from 1988 and his days with the Oklahoma State Cowboys: the single-season rushing total of 2,628 yards and 37 single-season rushing touchdowns. And he’s still on track after Saturday, but it won’t be easy.

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Through five games after Boise State’s Week 6 win over Utah State, Jeanty had 1,031 rushing yards on 95 carries for 16 touchdowns.

After the Broncos topped Hawai’i on Saturday, Jeanty now has 1,248 total rushing yards this season with 126 carries and 17 touchdowns. He’s averaging 9.9 yards per carry.

Ashton Jeanty. 54 yards. Touchdown.

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The praise Jeanty gets is so well deserved as he continues to impress.

“Ashton is an elite human being and the best football player in the country,” Broncos coach Spencer Danielson said, via Boise’s CBS affiliate. “He’s a generational talent, both on and off the field, and one of the best leaders I’ve ever been around.”

Jeanty is now 1,380 rushing yards and 20 touchdowns away from Sanders’ single-season records.

Boise State has six remaining regular-season games and — barring a Broncos meltdown of epic proportions — it will surely have at least a bowl game, if not a spot in the College Football Playoff.

To break Sanders’ rushing yards and rushing touchdowns records in the regular season, Jeanty needs to average 230.17 yards and 3.5 touchdowns per game. Only twice so far this season has he finished with fewer than three touchdowns.

To break Sanders’ records with the help of a conference title or bowl game, Jeanty needs to average 197.29 yards and three touchdowns per game for the rest of the year. Again, not easy, but a star like Jeanty could pull it off.

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Aside from Hawai’i, Jeanty has had two other games with more than 200 yards on the ground: first running for 267 yards against Georgia Southern (with six touchdowns) and then putting up 259 yards against Washington State (with four touchdowns).

Even in Boise State’s lone loss so far this season — a 37-34 heartbreaker against Oregon in Week 2 — Jeanty still finished with 192 rushing yards and three touchdowns on 25 carries.