Paul Myerberg

USA TODAY Sports

SAN DIEGO — Encased in glass on the ground floor of San Diego State’s athletics facility is a jersey honoring the finest football player in school history: Marshall Faulk, a Heisman Trophy finalist in 1992 and still the program’s career leader in rushing yards, attempts and touchdowns.

Faulk can be found again one floor above, in an office belonging to offensive coordinator and running backs coach Jeff Horton. Scattered throughout Horton’s office are pictures and news clippings related to past running backs who have found success here with the Aztecs, with a sign of the wall asking: Who’s going to be next?

This is a program with a solid track record in the backfield — Faulk, Larry Ned, Paul Hewitt, George Jones, Ronnie Hillman and Adam Muema, to name a few — despite uneven on-field results. But San Diego State has found its stride under sixth-year coach Rocky Long, who brings a 43-23 record into the 2016 season.

If the Aztecs flourish this fall — and as owners of an active 10-game winning streak, there’s ample cause for optimism — it will be in large part as a result of one player in particular: senior running back Donnel Pumphrey, a preseason Heisman Trophy candidate and the heir to Faulk’s legacy at the position.

Why San Diego State is a New Year's Six bowl contender

“I would put him against anybody,” Horton said of Pumphrey. “He’s a special kid, a special talent. As good as he’s been here, he’s never taken a turn the wrong way, let’s put it that way.”

Few players with Pumphrey's level of accomplishment are as unheralded as the Aztecs’ senior, and few are as worthy of more national attention. A two-time All-Mountain West Conference selection, Pumphrey heads into his final season as the active leader in the Football Bowl Subdivision in career rushing yards and yards from scrimmage; he is in striking distance of Faulk’s school record for rushing yards, attempts and touchdowns.

Pumphrey gained 1,867 yards on the ground as a sophomore, setting the school’s single-season record, and added 1,653 rushing yards a year ago. Pumphrey has eclipsed the 100-yard mark 22 times through his first three seasons and scored at least one touchdown in 28 of his 40 career appearances.

“They just took a chance on me,” Pumphrey said of San Diego State, which offered him a scholarship as a 150-pound running back from Las Vegas back while other programs saw his future in the defensive backfield. “A lot of teams, they didn’t feel like my size was there. I just respect them for that.”

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Despite adding weight since enrolling in the summer of 2013 — Horton said he’s “pushing 170” heading out of spring drills — Pumphrey remains an anomaly: Running backs of his size typically fill complementary or package-specific roles, offering speed and agility to spell larger, more traditionally sized backs.

Yet there is little he doesn’t do for this offense. Since the start of the 2013 season, Pumphrey is the only player in the FBS with at least 4,000 yards rushing and 800 yards receiving, and was one of just four players in the FBS last fall to lead their team in rushing and receiving.

His multiple-threat production draws parallels to another Heisman contender in Stanford junior Christian McCaffrey, a runner-up for the award last fall after leading the Cardinal in rushing, receiving and return yards. During the spring, San Diego State coaches alternated Pumphrey into the mix on kickoff returns, hoping to find another avenue to utilize his athletic skills.

“Look at how much he carries the ball,” Horton said. “He’s our leading receiver. The ball’s in his hands all the time. He can be as good as McCaffrey, I think.”

It’s hard to find a player so vital to this team’s hopes of reaching a New Year’s Day bowl; Pumphrey is the lifeblood of the Aztecs’ offensive hopes and a tone-setter for the program’s entire mentality, one predicated on dictating time of possession with a physical, run-based offense and an aggressive defense.

It’s equally difficult to find a running back so suited to his team’s system. This past offseason, Stanford put out national feelers for coaches to attend its clinic on the two-back offense, a bygone scheme once in vogue and now largely replaced by spread-based and tempo-heavy offenses. Only five teams showed: Boston College, North Dakota State, Vanderbilt and the Aztecs.

“We’re a team that runs the football,” Long said. “Kids that want to, say, play in the spread, where they score 80 points a game and receivers catch 150 passes a game … those kids don’t fit in here.

“We run a very physical offense, and in order to play in this offense you need to be a pretty tough guy. Every kid’s going to say, ‘I’m a tough guy, coach.’ But then they won’t take a trip. So you know deep down he wasn’t.”

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For Pumphrey, all that’s missing is a spotlight. San Diego State doesn’t enjoy the same television platform as members of the Power Five, let alone the publicity afforded to Boise State, its primary rival in the Mountain West Conference.

“We’re the last game on Saturday night,” Horton said. “If you’re in New York City, you have a couple beers, it’s around 10:30 at night and we’re kicking off. You watch the first quarter and you probably fall asleep.”

Perhaps the straightest path toward Heisman contention comes from his own team’s success. The two sides — Pumphrey as an individual player and the Aztecs as a whole — are intertwined: San Diego State’s push for an invitation to a New Year’s Six bowl will boost Pumphrey into the Heisman mix, just as his own production will ensure the Aztecs challenge for an unbeaten regular season.

“We were under that team, we were under that wing, and we want to pursue those same goals if not better goals,” Pumphrey said. “We all as one have the same goal.”

SCENES FROM SPRING FOOTBALL