Hello, Commish here, and full disclosure here up front. I am a Miami Heat basketball fan and have been since my mom is from Miami and I was taken to a Heat game in 1989. When I grew up in New Orleans, we didn’t have an NBA team, and I became a fan of them by my mom’s side of the family. I’ve followed them ever since then and really enjoyed Bam’s 83-point game.

The one thing I enjoyed the most about the record that Bam set for the 2nd most points in all of NBA single-game history was how out of the blue it was. You’d likely choose 50 or more active NBA players before you’d even think about Bam setting this mark. Bam had never been a prolific scorer throughout his career, and his high point total in a game was 41 points before doubling it in the 83-point effort. The most points Bam had averaged in a year was 20.4 points per game in 2022-23. In this game he quadrupled that career points per game average. He’s mainly your typical power forward who will get you around 18-20 points per night with about 10 rebounds per game and plays Defensive Player of the Year style of basketball. It’s not the profile of a high point-producing player, and he’s not normally asked to lead the team in scoring.

I thought to myself on our most recent podcast, how could we put this in college football terms? Who could be the most one-off-style NCAA record holder in FBS? What player holds an NCAA Football single-game record, but you really couldn’t see it coming based on their historical play patterns? Basically, is there an NCAA Football single game record similar to Bam Adebayo's 83 point game performance?

Let’s set some parameters here. We’re looking for the record that was set by someone who doubled or tripled their career high while setting an NCAA record. (Yes, I know Bam’s point total is in 2nd place behind Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point effort, and he didn’t set a record, but just go with it.) We’re also looking for someone who didn’t have really much history of coming close to record setting performances leading up to setting the record.

During his freshman year, Samaje really varied on the amount of carries he got per game, and the yards were quite wild. In non-conference, he basically got 10-11 carries per game on average. Then exploded with 34 carries and 242 yards against West Virginia.

He didn’t crack 100 yards again until 4 games later with 110 yards against Iowa State. Only got 5 carries against Baylor. Then 25 carries for 213 yards against Texas Tech. Then the NCAA record-setting performance of 34 carries for 427 yards against Kansas. He basically doubled his career high in a single game by adding 185 yards to his prior record set of 242 yards against West Virginia. This is similar to Bam’s previous record high being 41 points and then going to 83 points. So Samaje, you and Bam have a lot in common here. Sure, no one sees 427 yards coming, but with a couple of 200+ yard games already in the season, maybe you could have seen this explosion happening?

With Bam, though, I don’t think many of us could have expected this.

Khalil Tate was a little known Quarterback at Arizona coming into the 2016 season as a Freshman. He really didn’t do too much in his freshman year but one bolt of electricity ignited in 2017 when he became the full time starter in his sophomore year.

Khalil had his record-setting performance basically in his first full-time action against Houston. He was mainly unknown and went off for 14 carries for an absolutely absurd 327 yards and then an NCAA QB rushing single-game record. He only passed 13 times and ran 14 times. This was absolutely electric, and over time Khalil’s rushing declined due to becoming more of a passer after the insanity of his sophomore year.

This is similar to Bam in the out-of-nowhereness, but we didn’t have much history on Khalil, like we do with Bam.

Let’s see a quarterback in Mike Leach’s Air Raid system. Maybe you could see this one coming for Connor Halliday. He was regularly attempting 55-60 pass attempts per game.

Connor had a career high of 67 pass attempts before the record setting performance of 89 pass attempts in a single game against Oregon. If there was a pass attempt record being set, you could likely see Connor setting it. The combination of the offense, the coach, and the prior history all pointed here. Sure, it was 22 more attempts than he had ever thrown before, but maybe it could happen due to all the factors there. The combination of Oregon’s unstoppable offense with Marcus Mariota and Wazzu trying to keep up pace helped the NCAA record for pass attempts be set. Also, Connor and Patrick Mahomes share records for most yards in a single game with 734 yards passing. Patrick is second with 88 attempts in a single game. Both air raid QB’s with crazy records in passing. Things that are outlandish records that don’t really seem out of the blue due to their prior games and the style of the air raid offense.

This doesn’t seem like Bam’s record here, as Connor was putting up numbers before and everything aligned.

I think I finally got it figured out here.

Tony Sands was a running back for Kansas from 1988-1991. He wasn’t really known as a workhorse back as Tony was only 5’6” and 175 pounds. You’d never expect him to haul the ball and grind out a win for Kansas like a 220 or 230 pound back. Throughout his career he averaged about 17 carries per game and only 85.8 yards per game. He was used a bit more in his senior season but still was only averaging about 21.6 carries per game and averaged 104.6 yards per game before his last game as a Kansas Jayhawk.

As you can imagine, Kansas was not a football powerhouse; they hadn’t had a winning season for Tony’s entire career, and they were facing their hated rival in Missouri, sitting at 5-5. Tony carried the ball 58 times in a game, besting the mark of 57 set in 1977 by Minnesota’s Kent Kitzmann, who got 266 yards against Illinois.

On top of that, his 58 carries and 396-yard performance came two months after San Diego State’s Marshall Faulk gained an NCAA-record 386 yards against Pacific.

Sands broke Nolan Cromwell’s Kansas school record of 294 yards.

Tony also set the NCAA rushing single-game yardage record, which was later broken a few times. Sands’ rushing-yardage total of 396 was an NCAA record for eight years, until it was broken by LaDainian Tomlinson of TCU, who rushed for 406 yards on 43 carries with six touchdowns in a 52-24 home win over UTEP in 1999.

At halftime, Sands’ totals read 125 rushing yards on 25 carries. That is typically a full game for Tony Sands in his career, and there was no way in hell anyone was thinking about a record at this point even though Missouri had one of the worst rushing defenses in all of CFB that year.

“One thing I tell people about that one particular game,” Sands said, “is that made me a winner at the University of Kansas because going into that game, we were .500. “So to win it, we finished 6-5. We were winners (after 10 straight losing seasons). We were considered a winning program. I came in under (losing) circumstances but I ended as a winner. So that even speaks volumes when it comes to what that Missouri game meant to me. I tell people it wasn’t just about the record. It was about a group of guys that willing to band together for one common goal.” via the Kansas City Star.

33 carries and 271 more yards in the second half and Tony had the record setting performance.

So here, you have all the elements of what Bam Adebayo just did.

No one thought Tony could put up numbers like this and they were so historically out of line with his entire career.

Tony Sands is 145th in NCAA football history in all-time rushing attempts. His 273 rushing attempts in 1991 don't even crack the Top 100 in NCAA history either. He’s 45 carries short of 100th place.

But on that one day, Tony Sands had a historic day like Bam Adebayo's that seemingly came out of nowhere. Both Tony and Bam broke a record held by more prolific players in rushing (Marshall Faulk) and scoring (Kobe Bryant). So let’s celebrate the weirdness and absolutely out-of-nowhere nature of the accomplishment instead of arguing over things. Amazing things like this happen all the time, and it’s just great to be able to see things like this happen. It’s why, as a Committee, we try to watch as many games as possible, because you never know when magic can happen.

Suggest some others if you got them!

I did review Troy Edwards with 405 receiving yards in a game but he had two over 200 yard receiving yard games and averaged around 160 yards per game in his career but huge bonus for him doing it against Nebraska. David Klingler was another one with 11 TD passes in a game but he averaged 5 TD passes per game that year and set other NCAA records in the same season too.

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