Christian McCaffrey's national lead in all-purpose yardage continues to grow, and Stanford is now pushing for him to win the Heisman Trophy through an aggressive, yet simple online campaign that highlights some dizzying statistical production.
"Wildcaff.com -- with two F's," coach David Shaw said. "We want to support him. It's a really good sidebar to what we have going as an entire team."
.@CMccaffrey5 for the 2015 Heisman Trophy: https://t.co/qakTHsQrXm is live. Start spreading the news. #WildCaff pic.twitter.com/kxXdch8iPW
— Stanford Football (@StanfordFball) November 10, 2015McCaffrey's 2,174 all-purpose yards lead the nation by 230 yards. He recently passed Tony Dorsett (1976), Marcus Allen (1981), and Mark Ingram (2009) on the single-season list in that category. All three players won the Heisman Trophy in those seasons.
If he continues at his current pace of 241.6 all-purpose yards per game -- and if Stanford qualifies for the Pac-12 championship to guarantee the Cardinal at least 14 contests -- McCaffrey is on track to break Barry Sanders' single-season national record, which stands at 3,250 all-purpose yards (1988). There'd be plenty of intrigue there: McCaffrey grew up with Sanders posters on his room wall, and the Hall of Famer's son is his teammate at Stanford.
Though Shaw shrugged off doing extra promotion for McCaffrey last month -- that strategy didn't end up working for Heisman runners-up Toby Gerhart and Andrew Luck in recent years -- the Cardinal now feel that their current candidate's gaudy numbers need more exposure, especially since he faces some stiff competition.
Increased television exposure may also help McCaffrey moving forward. After a string of late 7:30 PT starts, Stanford played an early 10 a.m. PT game at Colorado this past Saturday. The upcoming showdown against Oregon kicks off at 4 p.m. PT, and the season finale against Notre Dame is expected to get prime time treatment.