100 Days, 100 Reasons G6 Football Matters

Saturday night, September 14, 1991. San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium. San Diego State vs. Pacific. A WAC school hosting a non-conference game on the West Coast. By the time it was over, most of the country had gone to bed.

Marshall Faulk was third on the depth chart. He wasn’t supposed to play. T.C. Wright, the starting tailback, went down with a bruised thigh late in the first quarter. Backup Wayne Pittman couldn’t find his helmet. Al Luginbill looked down the bench and pointed at the freshman from Carver High in New Orleans.

Faulk entered with 3:55 left in the first quarter. He scored on runs of 61, 47, 25, 9, 8, 7 and 5 yards. He carried the ball 37 times for 386 yards — an NCAA single-game record, surpassing Anthony Thompson’s 377 at Indiana in 1989. Thompson needed 52 carries. It was Faulk’s second college game.

“I didn’t sense it until the third touchdown,” he said. “I was like, ‘Golly, this kind of stuff doesn’t happen much to freshmen.’”

“I never got the sense anything special was happening other than we were scrambling for our lives both offensively and defensively,” Luginbill said.

Pacific coach Walt Harris didn’t find out Faulk had broken the NCAA record until reporters told him afterward.

“I’d take him,” Harris said. “I think he’s a great football player.”

Faulk called his high school coach, Wayne Reese, after the game.

“I think I’ve had the best game I’ve ever played,” Faulk told him.

“You’ve had the best game anybody’s ever played,” Reese said.

He led the nation in rushing and scoring that season — the first freshman in NCAA history to lead both categories in the same year. He made first-team All-American, only the third freshman to receive the honor after Tony Dorsett and Herschel Walker. He finished with 1,429 rushing yards and 21 touchdowns in nine games after missing three with a collapsed lung and fractured ribs.

In 1992, he led the nation in rushing again — 1,630 yards, 15 touchdowns — and finished second in the Heisman Trophy voting behind Gino Torretta. In 1993, his junior year, he rushed for 1,530 yards with 21 touchdowns and added 47 catches for 640 receiving yards. He finished fourth in the Heisman behind Charlie Ward. Three seasons at San Diego State: 4,589 rushing yards, 57 rushing touchdowns, three-time All-American, two-time Heisman finalist.

The Indianapolis Colts drafted him second overall in 1994. He scored 11 touchdowns as a rookie. In 1999, the Colts traded him to St. Louis, where he became the centerpiece of the Greatest Show on Turf. He rushed for 1,381 yards and caught 87 passes for 1,048 yards — only the second running back to gain 1,000 yards rushing and 1,000 yards receiving in the same season. The Rams won Super Bowl XXXIV over Tennessee.

In 2000, Faulk was named NFL MVP. He won AP Offensive Player of the Year three consecutive seasons — 1999, 2000 and 2001. He finished his career with 12,279 rushing yards, 767 receptions, 6,875 receiving yards and 136 total touchdowns. Pro Football Hall of Fame, class of 2011. First ballot. College Football Hall of Fame, class of 2017.

Twenty-five years after the Pacific game, Faulk reflected on the night that started everything.

“Just the magnitude of it,” he said. “Obviously we didn’t have social media then like we do now. When it was all said and done, looking back on it, I was like, ‘Wow.’ I’m just a kid having fun and it morphed into that.”

A broadcaster who covered the game put the whole thing in perspective: “Pittman can’t find his helmet. If Pittman finds his helmet, what happens to Marshall Faulk?”

They told you it didn’t matter. Here are 100 reasons it does.