In 1970, Texas Tech football fans got to witness the first ever 1000 yard rushing season as Doug McCutchen helped drive the Red Raiders offense forward. But it took a good while before the Red Raiders had another 1000 yard rushing season. Nearly a decade, in fact.
Eight years after McCutchen made Texas Tech football history and set a single season rushing record for the Red Raiders, TTU fans finally got to see that record beat and for the Red Raiders to get another 1000 yard rushing season.
That’s where James Hadnot and the 1978 Texas Tech football season come in. During that 1978 season, Hadnot was able to surpass what McCutchen had accomplished in a few different ways. And it’s not that what McCutchen accomplished wasn’t impressive. It’s just that Hadnot took things to the next level in a few ways.
Texas Tech football history: 8 years after the first 1000 yard rushing season, James Hadnot put up over 1000 yards
During the 1970 season, McCutchen managed to run for 1149 yards and four touchdowns on 249 carries, averaging out to 4.6 yards per carry. Eight years later, when Hadnot burst onto the scene in Lubbock, Texas Tech fans got to see Hadnot run for 1369 yards and five touchdowns on 251 carries, averaging out to 5.5 yards per carry.
Now, it’s not like Hadnot was drastically better than McCutchen, but there are some notable improvements in those stats there.
Looking at some of the individual game performances that Hadnot had in 1978, we’ll find a 268 yard rushing performance (on 26 carries, so talk about efficiency in yards per carry there) against New Mexico. Hadnot managed to run for 212 yards on 36 carries against the Baylor Bears, put up 166 yards on 25 carries against the TCU Horned Frogs, and had 160 yards on 31 carries vs. SMU.
In total, Hadnot had five different games where he ran for at least 100 rushing yards and then managed to piece together seven games where he got at least 25 carries.