(10-21-2015, 04:01 PM)terry link Wrote:[quote author=French Rage link=topic=13278.msg136051#msg136051 date=1445457885]
I was wondering about Taylor's career yards back in 2012. I thought he had broken the record during the first UCLA game, but they didn't say anything about it. Then it happened later, I forget which game. How late in the season did they make the change?
Stanford changed its record book policy during the week of Thanksgiving in 2012. At that point, after 11 games, Stepfan Taylor had 3,992 career rushing yards. Darrin Nelson's school record always had been listed as 4,033 yards, so Taylor was 41 yards away from the record.
Somebody noticed that the Pac-12 was listing Nelson's rushing total as 4,169 yards, compared to Stanford's figure of 4,033 yards. That was because the Pac-12 had retroactively added pre-2002 bowl games, while Stanford, following the NCAA's guidance, had not done that.
The people who had made Stanford's decision not to retroactively add old bowl games were Gary Migdol and Jim Young. They were gone and weren't around to explain what they had done. At that point, I was the closest thing Stanford had to an institutional memory on this issue. I had been helping out with Stanford's stats and record book for several years, which I continue to do. I was familiar with the NCAA's approach, the Pac-12's approach, and what Migdol and Young had decided.
I was involved in a series of phone calls on this issue during the week of Thanksgiving. The issue was somewhat urgent and couldn't be postponed until the off-season because Taylor was on the verge of breaking Nelson's record. After discussion, Alan George, Mike Eubanks, and Bernard Muir decided to go back and retroactively add old bowl stats to the record book. The thinking was that it was inconsistent to include Taylor's bowl games, but not Nelson's. So the record book was revised to raise Nelson's rushing total to 4,169 yards. That moved the goal line for Taylor, who now needed 177 yards to catch Nelson instead of just 41.
In the regular season finale against UCLA, Taylor ran for 142 yards, giving him 4,134 total yards. That would have been enough to break Nelson's record under the old policy, but left him 35 yards short under the new policy. Taylor broke the record the following week in the conference championship game, then added some more yardage in the Rose Bowl. He ended up with 4,300 yards.
When Stanford changed Nelson's yardage total, some articles incorrectly claimed that Stanford had found a mistake in its records. That wasn't true. Stanford, following the NCAA's approach, previously had deliberately chosen not to retroactively add old bowl game stats. Stanford changed that policy, which resulted in a number of changes throughout the record book. Stanford wasn't correcting a mistake. It was implementing a new policy.
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Very cool to know all of this.
I remember knowing the number he needed going into UCLA, and wondering if I had messed the number up in my head. Good to know I'm not crazy!