It’s not often Missouri gets a player with such a standout performance to come back for another year.
A big part of that was the Pinkel system that we operated under for 15 years, where underclassmen baked a little longer on the bench and upperclassmen typically got the starter-level snaps, only to shuffle off to graduation/NFL draft and the younger guys move up into their place.
Which meant the young guys didn’t get a lot of runway to demonstrate high-level performances, and the high-level performers
were typically guys who were draft eligible or graduating.
But when Josh Matejka asked me if Ahmad Hardy could do better in 2026 than what he did in 2025, it got me thinking:
How often does Missouri see a 1,000+ yard rusher?
AND
How often do they come back?
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What did they do in that second year?
Let’s talk a walk down memory lane, shall we?
First, how often has Missouri had a player rush for 1,000+ yards?
By my count its 21 times, only four of which happened before the year 2000.
Bob Steuber, Joe Moore, Darrell Wallace, Devin West, Brad Smith, Zack Abron, Tony Temple, Derrick Washington, Henry Josey, Kendial Lawrence, Russell Hansbrough, Damarea Crockett, Ish Witter, Larry Rountree III, Tyler Badie, Cody Schrader, and Ahmad Hardy are the gentlemen who achieved this feat while wearing the black and gold.
Quick: how many of them ran for over 1,000 yards twice in their college career?
It’s not many.
The answer?
- Brad Smith, Tony Temple, and Henry Josey.
Josey did it in non-consecutive years. Temple eclipsed 1,000 yards in ‘06 and ‘07.
Brad Smith did them all one better and ripped off 1k on the ground three times: ‘02, ‘03, and ‘05.
But that’s it.
Missouri has been playing football for 132 years and only seen a 1,000+ rusher in 21 seasons.
(That’s 16%, in case you were wondering.)
So it’s rare! And Ahmad Hardy will be attempting to be the fourth Missouri Tiger ever to produce more than one 1,000-yard rushing season. And only the third to do so in back-to-back seasons.
That’s a lot of history to overcome but, who are we kidding, this is an Eli Drinkwitz offense piloted by an OC who has a history of only wanting to run the ball: Hardy will get plenty of opportunity to add his name to the pantheon.
But! How often do 1,000+ yard rushers return to Missouri?
Let’s break it down by player:
- Bob Steuber – was drafted by the NFL at the conclusion of the ‘42 season, then drafted by the Navy to participate in that event of modest-renown, World War II.
- Joe Moore – returned for the 1970 season.
- Darrell Wallace – returned for the 1986 and ’87 seasons.
- Devin West – graduated
- Brad Smith – returned in ‘02 and ‘03, graduated in ‘05.
- Zack Abron – graduated
- Tony Temple – returned after ‘06, graduated after ‘07.
- Derrick Washington – returned for the ‘09 season.
- Henry Josey – knee exploded during the ‘11 campaign, declared for the NFL draft at the conclusion of the 2013 season.
- Kendial Lawrence – graduated
- Russell Hansbrough – returned for the ‘15 season.
- Damarea Crockett – returned for ‘17 and ‘18 seasons.
- Ish Witter – graduated
- Larry Rountree III – returned for ‘19 and ‘20 seasons.
- Tyler Badie – graduated
- Cody Schrader – graduated
- Ahmad Hardy – returning for 2026 season.
That’s 10 of the 17 guys who crested 1,000 yards on the ground to return the following year, or 59%.
Ok, so how did they do that next year?
Well…
- Joe Moore – ran for 610 yards in the first five games before suffering a shoulder injury.
- Darrell Wallace – usage dipped from 226 carries in 1985 to 211 in 1986 (but led the Big 8 in carries and yards) and then down to 126 carries in 1987, finishing with 872 yards in ‘86 and 552 in ‘87.
- Brad Smith – increased his carries and yards from 2002 to 2003, suffered through the “Brad Smith: Pocket Passer” debacle of 2004, then finished strong by leading the XII in carries and yards in ‘05.
- Tony Temple – slight dip in carries and yards from ‘06 to ‘07, but eclipsed 1,000 yards in both years.
- Derrick Washington – increased carries but decreased yardage in ‘09, going from 177/1,036 to 190/865.
- Henry Josey – spent over a year rehabbing his knee before gaining over 1,000 yards again in 2013.
- Russell Hansbrough – suffered the most from the doomed 2015 season, seeing his carries cut in half and managing only 40% of what he did the previous year.
- Damarea Crockett – injuries cut his next season short, then he suffered though more injuries in his junior campaign. The result? 1,062 yards in his freshman year, 1,190 yards combined in his sophomore and junior years.
- Larry Rountree III – saw his usage diminished in the 2019 season, then (surely) would have gone over 1,000 yards in 2020 if it had been a regular football season.
That’s three of the ten who were able to improve their yardage total from their 1,000 yard season. It’s not great but, hey, doing this sort of thing is meant to be hard!
But then I got to thinking…
How often does a guy run for 1,000 yards in the SEC?
The answer: quite a bit! But let’s break it down into a more manageable slice of data.
Since the year 2000, the SEC has seen 147 instances of a player rushing for over 1,000 yards, seven of which were done by a quarterback.
Do you want to guess how many were able to do so twice?
Remember, 3 of the 17 Missouri Tigers were able to run for more than 1,000 yards twice in a career.
And, to add complication, none of them did it in the SEC.
Yes, Henry Josey ran for over 1,000 yards against the SEC in 2013. But his first time was in the XII.
So 17% of Tiger runners are able to gain 1,000 yards twice in a career.
The number of SEC guys to do it: 28.
Or, 19%.
Ohhhhhhh, eerily close to Missouri’s 17%! Ohhhhhh, the intrigue!
Here are the SEC guys who ran for 1,000+ yards and then did more the next year:
- BenJarvus Green-Ellis (Ole Miss)
- Ke’Shawn Vaughn (Vanderbilt)
- Michael Dyer (Auburn)
- Ray Davis (did it for Vanderbilt one year, then Kentucky the next year, which is a fun quirk)
- Knowshon Moreno (Georgia)
- D’Andre Swift (Georgia)
- Tre Mason (Auburn)
- Jerious Norwood (Mississippi State)
- T.J. Yeldon (Alabama)
- Kenneth Darby (Alabama)
- Trayveon Williams (Texas A&M)
- Sony Michel (Georgia)
- Alex Collins (Arkansas)
- Leonard Fournette (LSU)
- Najee Harris (Alabama)
- Benny Snell, Jr. (Kentucky)
- Anthony Dixon (Mississippi State)
- Ralph Webb (Vanderbilt)
- Darren McFadden (Arkansas)
- Nick Chubb (Georgia)
That’s 20 of the 28 guys to provide a higher yardage total in the years following the 1,000+ yard achievement.
Or, 71%.
Meaning it’s more likely that an SEC running back is able to get better in the years after than the Missouri guys.
Interesting. Especially since its not just Georgia and Alabama types up there on that list.
As a quick aside: do you know how many SEC running backs have eclipsed 1,000 yards three times in their SEC careers?
It’s the names above that stand out, as a hint.
Ok, here it goes:
- Nick Chubb (Georgia)
- Darren McFadden (Arkansas)
- Benny Snell, Jr. (Kentucky)
- Alex Collins (Arkansas)
Now, what do you think?
Let’s revisit our friend Ahmad. His 2025 line read thusly:
- 256 rushes
- 1,649 yards
- 16 touchdowns
- 6.44 yards per carry
- 49.6% rushing success rate
- 32.4% 1st-down generation per run
- 15.2% of rushes going for <=0 yards
- 16.8% of rushes going for 10+ yards
- 1.82 average yards before contact
- 4.62 average yards after contact
- 3 fumbles, 1 lost
It’s tough to do better than that. In fact, Hardy’s raw yardage in 2025 is better than any other first 1,000+ yard season of SEC rushers who repeated the feat. By quite a bit, I might add. Remember, Hardy’s 2025 rushing yardage total was the 8th-best rushing season in the SEC! So, in order to be better, he would have to notch a Top Ten Rushing season IN ALL OF SEC HISTORY, but be better than the 8th-best ever because that’s him.
And while it’s worth pointing out that he was missing during key stretches of Missouri’s campaign (for reasons unknown): according to Sports Reference, only Devin West (283), Cody Schrader (276), and Tyler Badie (268) have carried the ball more in a single season than the 256 attempts Hardy had in 2025.
Can Hardy get to 1,800 yards? 20 touchdowns? A cool 50% success rate? As a Missouri Tiger there’s a 70% chance he regresses, but as an SEC player there’s a 71% chance he gets better!
We’ll find out this fall.
