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With sports on hold for the foreseeable future, our own Andrew Hutchinson - who’s known for his love of numbers - is digging into his file of favorite statistics and sharing them in a new “Stat of the Week” series on HawgBeat.
First up is a look back at Darren McFadden’s dominance of South Carolina…
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No player in Arkansas history - regardless of the sport - has owned an opponent quite like Darren McFadden owned South Carolina over a three-year stretch during the 2000s.
In three career games against the Gamecocks, he put up numbers that some running backs would consider a solid season.
It started as a freshman in 2005. Coming off a 190-yard effort at Georgia, McFadden nearly matched that against South Carolina. He finished with 187 yards on 32 carries to really burst onto the college football scene.
The following season, McFadden emerged as a Heisman Trophy candidate thanks to his production coupled with Arkansas’ success. In the Razorbacks’ eighth straight win, he needed just 25 carries to torch the Gamecocks for 219 yards and two touchdowns. At the time, it was tied for the fourth most rushing yards an Arkansas player had ever gained in a single game.
McFadden saved his best performance for last, though. In a shootout with South Carolina, he tied an SEC single-game record by running for 321 yards. That also shattered Dickey Morton’s 34-year-old UA record by 50 yards.
Early on, it seemed like it would be Felix Jones’ night, as he had touchdown runs of 40 and 72 yards in the first quarter. However, this was at the height of McFadden’s use in the “Wild Hog” that featured him at quarterback and he racked up 120 yards on nine carries out of that formation alone.
During the third quarter, McFadden took a snap and actually fired a 23-yard touchdown pass to quarterback-turned-receiver Robert Johnson.
The Razorbacks led all game, but South Carolina pulled within six points with a touchdown midway through the fourth quarter. McFadden ignited the crowd of 70,742 by immediately following the Gamecocks’ touchdown with an 80-yard run on the first play of Arkansas’ next possession.
When the game ended, McFadden was credited with an SEC single-game record 323 yards. However, a review of the film revealed he was mistakenly credited with a 3-yard run by Jones and that he was shorted one yard on another run, so instead, he tied the 29-year-old record held by Vanderbilt’s Frank Mordica.
That performance alone would be enough to land on my list of favorite statistics, but when you combine it with his other two games against South Carolina, it truly becomes incredible.
McFadden ran for for 727 yards and three touchdowns on 91 carries. Throw in four receptions for 10 yards, seven kickoff returns for 144 yards and his touchdown pass, he accounted for 904 yards in the three games.
No other Arkansas player comes close to having those numbers against a single opponent. The closest is Morton, who followed up 113- and 157-yard outings against Baylor in 1971 and 1972, respectively, with a then-record 271 yards in 1973. That gave him a total of 541 yards against the Bears - still 186 yards fewer than McFadden had against South Carolina.
The only other Razorbacks with three 100-yard rushing games against one team are Ben Cowins (352 total yards vs. Rice), Fred Talley (463 vs. Ole Miss) and Alex Collins (398 vs. Texas A&M).
What makes this stat even crazier is that South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier - who has a vote because he won the award in 1966 - completely left McFadden off his Heisman Trophy ballot. Despite watching him gash his team for three straight years, including for an SEC record, Spurrier didn’t give McFadden a first-, second- or third-place vote for the award.
