Could JW Walsh challenge the single-season QB rushing record?

Photo Attribution: USATSI

Now that I’m all in on No. 4 and Mike Yurcich is all in on the San Fran offense and turning Walsh into his mini-Kaepernick, I wanted to see if Walsh had a chance to make a run at the all-time record for rushing yards by a QB in a season.

The problem is that that’s actually kind of a difficult statistic to find.

Depending on how you feel about Bob Fenimore and the single-wing offense (see below), he’s technically the all-time leading rusher even though they used the forward pass as often as Antonio Cromartie uses protection.[1. Fenimore threw for 593 yards on 61 passes in 1945. The scary thing is that in 1993 when the forward pass was actually en vogue Tone Jones only threw for 608 yards on 111 passes!]

So here are the two records (I think) Walsh is shooting for:

All time record

Bob Fenimore — 1,048 yards (7.4/attempt) (1945)

Modern day record

Zac Robinson — 847 yards (6.1/attempt) (2007)

After running for 125 against Mississippi State last Saturday, what does Walsh have to do to break these?

Well, last year in the five games he started (I count Louisiana) he averaged 7.6 carries per game and for the year he averaged 5.7 yards per carry. Multiply those out over 13 games (assuming he stays healthy) and you get 563 yards.

But this isn’t last year and Yurcich isn’t running Monken’s offense. I think Walsh will run closer to 10 times a game (he ran for 13 against Mississippi State) and with more called running plays (instead of Walsh running for his life on occasion) I think his average is more like 6.0 yards per carry (it was 9.6 against Mississippi State).

10 carries a game
6 yards a carry
13 games
780 yards

That would be a little bit short of Zac’s modern day mark.

But remember, he already has that buck twenty-five under his belt from Houston and will likely have a few other monstrous games (11 had three games of 100+ rushing yards in 2007).

I think he can do it, and hope he does, let’s just not let this happen (ever, preferably):