The Houston Cougars scored the first 10 points of the game. The San Diego State Aztecs scored all the rest of the points in the game.
SDSU recovered from a slow start, watched their Mighty Mouse running back set an NCAA record, and won the Las Vegas Bowl 34-10 on Saturday afternoon. Keep in mind, this Houston team beat then-#3 and Big 12 champion Oklahoma and then-#5 Louisville this season.
The biggest story of the day was Aztecs running back Donnel Pumphrey, a Las Vegas native who ran 19 times for 115 yards and a 32-yard touchdown, moving past Ron Dayne and in to first place on the NCAA’s all-time rushing list. No back in the history of college football has even been as prolific as Pumphrey was in his four years on Montezuma Mesa.
But not to be overlooked is the work of the San Diego State defense. The Aztecs held a very good Cougars offense to just 254 total yards and intercepted quarterback Greg Ward four times, quite the feat against a QB that had only been picked off nine times the entire season.
Kameron Kelly had a pair of picks and Calvin Munson added another but Ron Smith’s was the most devastating. Less than three minutes after Pumphrey’s TD run gave the Aztecs a 13-10 lead in the 3rd quarter Smith jumped a route and took the interception back 54 yards for another score.
Aztecs running back Rashaad Penny carried nine times for 10 yards, going over the 1,000 yard barrier for the season and making the Aztecs the first team in NCAA history to have a 2,000-yard rusher and a 1,000-yard rusher in the same season.
Now there is a little bit of controversy about Pumphrey’s record. The NCAA did not allow bowl game statistics to be counted in career numbers until 2002. If you add Dayne’s bowl numbers at Wisconsin then his number is 7,125 career rushing yards. In fact Dayne himself sent a tweet with one of the most backhanded “compliments” you will ever see.
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Of course #GOAT means Greatest Of All Time and #7125 is Dayne’s yardage total. But one could argue that Pumphrey is still the more devastating weapon.
When you include bowl games Dayne had 141 more carries than Pumphrey did. Donnel averaged 6.0 yards per carry while Dayne ran for 5.8 yards per carry. So if you give Donnel the same number of rushes that the former king had he would have 7,251 rushing yards, a full 126 more than the former Wisconsin star.
Dayne scored 71 career touchdowns while Pumphrey had 67 and Donnel was far and away the better receiver out of the backfield.
Of course, Dayne was a 1st round pick (11th overall) by the New York Giants and became one of the biggest busts in recent NFL memory. Pumphrey is regarded as a 3rd-5th rounder due to his size (or lack thereof) so he is likely going to be the opposite of Dayne.
Instead of being a big guy who does little things in the NFL, Pumphrey looks like a little guy who will do big things in pro football.
The Aztecs have won back-to-back bowl games and have a chance of finishing the season ranked in the Top-25.
