Buffalo RB Jaret Patterson ties college football record with 8 rushing touchdowns
Buffalo running back Jaret Patterson tied a longstanding college football record with eight rushing touchdowns in the Bulls’ 70-41 win over Kent State.
Patterson finished the game with 36 carries for 409 yards and eight scores. That yardage total was 18 yards short of tying former Oklahoma running back Samaje Perine for the most rushing yards in a single game. Perine rushed for that 427 against Kansas as a freshman in 2014.
“I gotta give credit to the big guys up front,” Patterson said after the game on CBS Sports Network.
The junior joins Howard Griffith as the only players at the top level of college football to rush for eight touchdowns in a single game. Griffith, now an analyst for the Big Ten Network, rushed for eight TDs in Illinois’ win over Southern Illinois in 1990.
Patterson could have easily broken Griffith’s record. And maybe Perine’s, too.
Jaret Patterson pulled from the game late
He had 385 yards and eight touchdowns when he recovered a Kent State onside kick at the KSU 43 with less than five minutes to go. Buffalo gave him the ball four consecutive times and he got 22 yards. But the Bulls and coach Lance Leipold took Patterson out of the game with the ball at the 21. Two plays later, backup RB Kevin Marks Jr. scored a 15-yard TD.
All 10 of Buffalo’s touchdowns came on the ground. Marks rushed 16 times for 97 yards and two scores.
Should the Bulls have kept Patterson in? If you were rooting for the best rushing day in college football history, absolutely. While Buffalo was up 29 when Patterson played, you couldn’t have faulted Leipold and Patterson for wanting to go for both records.
Patterson said after the game that he was given an idea about the rushing TD record after he scored his sixth of the game. But he didn’t know about the yardage record until after the game.
“They told me about the touchdowns, I didn’t know about the yards,” Patterson said. “I just was trying to run out the clock so we can go into the locker room and celebrate with everybody. I’m not really too impressed over the records ... I just wanted to win.”
Jaret Patterson’s fantastic 2020 season
Patterson had been fantastic before his record-tying performance on Saturday. He entered the game with 71 carries for 511 yards and eight touchdowns through Buffalo’s first three games. He now has 107 carries for 920 yards and 16 touchdowns in four games.
That’s an incredible follow-up to two 1,000-yard seasons to start his career. Patterson rushed for 1,013 yards and 14 TDs as a freshman in 2018 and had 1,799 yards and 19 TDs in 2019. He also had 209 receiving yards a year ago to eclipse 2,000 yards from scrimmage.
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