Samaje Perine was one of college football’s most consistent, efficient running backs over the last three seasons. He’s now a Washington NFL draft pick.
Washington pick Samaje Perine once ran for *427 yards* in a record-setting game
The big Sooner holds the all-time Division I FBS single-game rushing record.
Photo by Brett Deering/Getty Images
Perine’s Oklahoma Sooners evolved on offense during his time in Norman, shifting away from the run game even as they added talent to their backfield (he’s one of two OU backs we rank in this draft’s top eight runners). Perine’s overall numbers shrunk because of that, but he was still a 1,000-yard rusher every year.
He had lots of great games, and one stood out above the rest.
In a 2014 game against a woebegone Kansas, Perine took the ball 34 times and ran for 427 yards — a 12.5-yard average, with five touchdowns mixed in. The yardage total is a still-standing record for the Football Bowl Subdivision, the college game’s highest level of play. It’s possible it will never be matched, even though the record he was breaking — 408 by Wisconsin’s Melvin Gordon against Nebraska — had been set the week prior.
Here’s a video that outlines his destruction of the Jayhawks pretty well:
Yeah, it’s just Kansas, but it’s not like anybody else ran for 427 against the Jayhawks.
Kansas’ defense is bad. Probably, it’s been the worst team in the sport’s power conferences over the last handful of years. Perine will see defenses that are just a liiiitttttle better in the NFL. But what’s being sorted out this spring is just what Perine’s upside might be at the next level.
Perine’s a powerful back.
He’s 5’10 and was listed at 235 pounds during his junior year at OU, after which he declared for the draft. At the NFL Scouting Combine in the winter, Perine out-bench pressed every running back and almost every offensive lineman.
He had 40 catches in three seasons for 321 yards. In the NFL, he’ll be a battering room, not a Le’Veon Bell-style runner and receiver who can line up anywhere and torment either defensive tackles or cornerbacks.
His value is in his ability to take the ball many, many times — an average of 19 per game at OU — and grind out 4 and 5 yards at a time.
Need a non-football reason to like Perine? Here’s one.
He proposed to his now-fiancee, Meg, in February, and he did it via a magic trick.
It was a complicated trick, carried out by a professional magician. I don’t really understand how it worked, but it ended with a piece of it in Meg’s mouth that said, among other things, “Will you marry me?” Pretty creative!
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