There was a fairly decent break between the first and second 1000 yard rushing seasons from a single player in Texas Tech football history. Eight years passed from when Dough McCutchen first set that standard with that accomplishment and when James Hadnot was able to surpass what McCutchen pulled off.
That’s a fairly decent amount of time! A lot of things can change in the better part of a decade.
However, after the second time it happened, it didn’t take too long for Texas Tech to get that third ever instance of a Red Raider running for 1000 or more yards in a single season. Just one year after Hadnot ran for more than 1000 yards in a year (and set a few records at that time in the process), he managed to do it again in 1979.
And in 1979, Hadnot was (for the most part) even better than he’d been a season prior. Now there is one area in which he regressed a bit, but we’ll get there in a minute.
Let’s focus on where Hadnot thrived as he became the first ever Texas Tech football player to run for at least 1000 yards in a single season on two occasions. That’s something we need to go over.
Texas Tech football history: James Hadnot ran for over 1000 yards in two seasons, becoming the 1st Red Raider to do that multiple times
During the 1979 season, Hadnot managed to run for 1371 yards on 273 carries (which was good for a little over five yards per carry). We’re talking about a season in which Hadnot literally ran for TWO more yards than what he had a season prior.
BUT! The man had seven different games where he ran for 100 or more yards.
That includes the 204 yards he gained on 35 carries against the Rice Owls, the 199 yards on 21 carries vs. the Houston Cougars, the 253 yards on 29 carries against New Mexico, the 141 yards on 29 carries vs. Arizona, the 127 yards from 17 carries vs. the Baylor Bears, and the 111 yards on 29 carries against Texas A&M.
All that said, he only had one rushing touchdown in 1979. A grand total of one. One score on the ground for Hadnot in 1979. That, my friends, is a little odd.