AUSTIN — Keaontay Ingram ran 19 times for more than 100 yards against Baylor and brought back memories of great rushing attacks for the Longhorns.
Tom Herman has tried to take it easy on Keaontay, saying “I think that he is a 20-carry guy. I'm sorry, he's a 19-carry guy, but, yeah, he'll continue to. We got to be careful also, he's a guy that got here in June and he's played a lot of football, a lot of wear and tear on his body already, having won all the state championships that he won at Carthage and being kind of the work horse for them too.”
The Longhorns have had work horse running backs for years who hit the 1,000 yard mark. The tradition includes Chris Gilbert and Roosevelt Leaks. Earl Campbell was non-stop in the late 90s and early 2000s.
From 1995 with Shon Mitchell leading the way to 2007 with Jamaal Charles, the Longhorns had a 1,000-yard rusher every year but one.
1995: Shon Mitchell, 1099
1996: Ricky Williams, 1272
1997: Ricky Williams, 1893
1998: Ricky Williams, 2124
1999: Hodges Mitchell, 1343
2000: Hodges Mitchell, 1118
2001: Cedric Benson, 1053
2002: Cedric Benson, 1293
2003: Cedric Benson, 1360
2004: Cedric Benson with 1834 yards and Vince Young with 1079 yards
2005: Vince Young, 1050
2006: Jamaal Charles, 831
2007: Jamaal Charles, 1619
But for the last ten years. there has only been one 1000-yard rusher. And D’Onta Foreman went over 2000 yards in 2016.
2008: Colt McCoy, 561
2009: Tre Newton, 552
2010: Cody Johnston, 592
2011: Malcolm Brown, 742
2012: Johnathan Gray, 701
2013: Malcolm Brown, 904
2014: Malcolm Brown, 708
2015: D’Onta Foreman, 681
2016: D’Onta Foreman, 2028
2017: Sam Ehlinger, 385
Where did all the rushing go? The blue-chip recruits continue to show up on campus, but injuries and offensive struggles have made it hard to hit the 1,000 yard mark.
Now Herman has Ingram. But Ingram is still sharing time with Tre Watson and Daniel Young.
“We feel great with Tre as well as Danny,” Herman said. “We feel like we have got three guys that at any given time can do what we need to do to win. But if we got to hand (Ingram) the ball 22 times to win, then we'll hand it to him 22 times.”
Ingram is on pace for 800 yards in the 12 game regular season. Add a possible Big 12 Championship Game and a bowl game and the days of the 1,000-yard rushers at Texas may be back.