Where Minnesota’s 2020 season is concerned, there were at least two things worth celebrating: How mediocre they were, and how amazing Mohamed Ibrahim played.
(Big congrats to Ronaldo on the negative test!)
As we all clearly know, the single season record holder for rushing TDs by a B1G/Big Ten running back is Wisconsin’s Montee Ball. In the 2011 season, Ball rushed for 33 TDs in 14 games, plus another 6 receiving TDs. Doing some quick math and...that works out to 2.36 rushing TDs per game
In the 2020 “season,” Mo Ibrahim rushed for 15 TDs in his first six games. Frankly, that’s insane. Of course his seventh game was against one of the country’s best rushing Ds and he was held touchdownless, but before that? When I first conceived of the idea for a “Hey Mo Ibrahim is really good!” article, he was looking at 2 1⁄2 TDs per game, which is bonkers and would have made him the new record holder for the conference, two ahead of Ball and four ahead of Melvin Gordon—who also attended Wisconsin in case you forgot.
When you consider how mediocre-to-poor the rest of the offense (surprisingly!) turned out to be, and how poor the defense (unsurprisingly!) played, I think it makes Ibrahim’s season all the more impressive. It’s hard to get a lot of touches and scores when your team is losing by 25 to Michigan and 28 to Iowa; nonetheless, Mo racked up the scoring stats in a big way. Also please don’t go look up specifically how he performed in those games.
Mohamed Ibrahim rushed for more than 200 yards and 4 touchdowns for the 2nd consecutive week as @GopherFootball claimed a victory at Illinois. #B1GFootballpic.twitter.com/HcWfZVDSY5
— Big Ten Football (@B1Gfootball) November 9, 2020
Go back and watch that video, please. He had a good year in the midst of just an awful, awful year, both practically and college football-y. Hats off to you, Mohamed Ibrahim!
Poll
15 TDs in 7 games. Could he have gotten the record with a full season?
This poll is closed
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14%
Yes
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17%
No
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26%
No but that’s because he wouldn’t have had 14 games like Ball had
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40%
How the f did Barry Sanders score 39 rushing TDs in the 1980s