Jonathan Taylor runs in the shadow of history at Wisconsin.

Ron Dayne long held the NCAA career rushing record – he still does, depending on who you ask – Melvin Gordon sits second all-time on the single-season rushing list and the NFL is dotted with former Badger backs. Yet Taylor seems to shrug off those records with every passing season. Entering his junior year, Taylor is set to become one of the most decorated rushers in NCAA history.

247Sports is examining some of college football’s top stars during the offseason with an eye for historic context. Taylor, the third player in our series, is another player who can only be compared to the best ever.

Taylor is the first player in modern NCAA history to post a pair of 1,900-yard seasons within his first two years of college, according to Sports Reference which dates back to 1956. There are only five players who’ve even posted two 1,900-yard seasons: Ron Dayne (Wisconsin), DeAngelo Williams (Memphis), LaDainian Tomlinson (TCU), Troy Davis (Iowa State) and Taylor.

There’s little question Taylor’s benefited from elite offensive line play since arriving in Madison. But many players run behind great offensive lines. Nobody puts up stats like Taylor:

2017: 299 attempts, 1,977 yards, 13 TDs, 6.6 ypc

2018: 307 attempts, 2,194 yards, 16 TDs, 7.1 ypc

In an era where workhorse running backs are trending toward extinction, Taylor is bucking that trend. He shouldered a huge load in a tough conference in 2017. The next year, as Wisconsin’s quarterbacks struggled and the offensive line took a slight step back, Taylor got better.

Taylor broke Adrian Peterson’s freshman rushing record two years ago. Yet Peterson had fewer rushing yards the rest of his career (2,116) than Taylor did in just 2018 – injuries limited Peterson in his final two years at Oklahoma. Dayne held the freshman rushing record before Peterson, but he had his worst season as a sophomore.

From a pure stats perspective, Iowa State's Davis might be Taylor’s best foil. Davis hardly played as a freshman in 1994 with just 35 carries. The next two seasons he became the first player to card back-to-back 2,000-yard seasons. Twice a Heisman finalist, Davis eventually declared early for the NFL Draft.

Davis’ numbers those two years (4,195, 36 TDs) look rather similar to Taylor’s thus far (4,171 yards, 29 TDs); Davis had an absurd 141 additional carries than Taylor during his two-year stretch.

It’s hard to know how the NFL will view a player with Taylor’s tread a year from now when he’s eligible – it’d be nearly unprecedented for a running back to return to school after such a heavy workload – but Taylor’s got the measurables to excel. He’s 5-foot-11, 221 pounds with sub 4.5 40-yard dash speed (Taylor ran a 4.42 in high school) and plenty of general explosiveness (35-inch vertical). Taylor, who ran track for the Badgers this spring, can also make people miss. He forced 65 missed tackles last season and had 1,307 yards after contact, per PFF College.

As Taylor sprints toward the 2019 season, he’s on the verge of a myriad of rushing records. These are just a smattering of them:

He’s 13 100-yard games away from tying Williams’ all-time record of 34.

He’s four 200-yard rushing games away from breaking the NCAA’s all-time record

With a 1,500-yard season he’d become one of just six ever rushers with three such career seasons

Then there’s the all-time mark. Because of the NCAA not counting bowl stats until 2002, Dayne’s 7,125 rushing yards aren’t actually the NCAA’s official career rushing record. Instead, the record belongs to San Diego State’s Donnel Pumphrey at 6,405. That’s something Taylor could reach with a 2,235-yard season.

It’s worth nothing there have only been five rushing seasons in NCAA history with that type of production. But Taylor already owns two of the 33 highest single-season totals. A jump to 2,235 yards doesn’t seem absurd, especially if Wisconsin starts really feeding him late in the year if he gets close.

Taylor’s chase of history is on.

Other Articles From This Series

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Tua Tagovailoa: Putting the Alabama star's historic season in context

