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Razorback Records That Will Never Be Broken

The Hogs will play sports again one day, but most of these records will never fall

NCAA Basketball: SEC Tournament-Vanderbilt vs Arkansas
Isaiah Joe owns a school record that may soon fall.
Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports

Sports may be gone for now, but these records will stand long after play resumes. See if you agree with this list of Razorback sports records that will definitely be broken, might be broken, and may soon be broken.

No chance

I’ll eat my hat if any of these records are broken in my lifetime.

Broderick Green’s 99-yard touchdown run

Of all Razorback running backs in the last two decades, Broderick Green is the least likely to go for 99 yards, but that’s exactly what he did against Eastern Michigan in 2009, and that record will never be topped. It’s literally not possible to break it.

Steve Little’s 67-yard field goal

Little’s 67-yard field in the 1977 Texas game remains the longest in NCAA history. It’s been several decades since a Hog connected even from 60, though Connor Limpert hit from 59 and barely missed from 60 during his time in a Razorback uniform. Little was a rare breed, and I doubt any Hog kicker will ever top this record.

John McDonnell’s 40 national championships, 5 triple crowns, and 84 conference championships

No one’s ever coming close to these. McDonnell was a 30-time national coach of the year and it’s difficult to even describe the track program he built at Arkansas. We can go over the numbers all we want: 23 Olympians, 105 individual NCAA champions, and plenty more. It’s worth noting that he was coaching high school track in Louisiana (3 total years of coaching experience, all high school) when Frank Broyles hired him in 1972. How would a hire like that go over today?

Todd Day’s 2,395 career points

The rationale here is that any player able to score that prolifically will not stay in college long enough to top Day’s record. At a generous 36 games per season, a player would have to average 16.6 points per game for a full four-year career just to tie Day’s record. Let’s add some more perspective: Mason Jones would have to repeat his 2020 season (22.03 points per game) for 109 games to break Day’s record. Doing quick math, 109 games in three years comes out to 36.3 games per season, so it’s unlikely he’d be able to do it in three years (at 31 regular season games, the Hogs would need to average 5.3 games in the SEC and postseason tournaments).

Unlikely to fall

Is is possible that one or more of these records could eventually be broken? Yes. Is it likely? No, it’s not.

Corliss Williamson’s 303 career points in the Big Dance

The Big Nasty scored 303 points over his 15 NCAA Tournament games (20.2 points per game). That’s easily the most in SEC history and the 6th-most in Division I history. The logic here is similar to Day’s: in today’s college basketball world, a player that good is unlikely to stay in college long enough to play in 15 NCAA Tournament games. Reaching the title game gives you six, so Williamson played 3, 6, 6 over his three seasons in Fayetteville. In order to break Williamson’s record in two years, a future Hog would have to average 25.3 points per game in the tournament… and that’s only if the Hogs reach the national championship game in both seasons.

Darren McFadden’s 321 rushing yards in a game

Several of McFadden’s record may be untouchable. Run D-Mc went for 321 yards in 34 carries against South Carolina in 2007, tying the SEC record. As load management and backfield committees become more popular at high levels of football, it seems unlikely that any future Hog could ever go for 321 rushing yards in a game.

Blaine Knight’s 14-0 season

You can’t get any better than 100%, but I only put this in the “unlikely to fall” section because in theory, a future Hog pitcher could go 15-0 or 16-0 and “break” this record. Knight went through an SEC schedule as a Friday night starter in 2018 and didn’t lose a game. He stepped up when it mattered most, winning all four NCAA Tournament starts, including two CWS games. Just dominant.

Dean Tolson’s six career 20-rebound games

When was the last time a Hog player had 20 rebounds in a game? If you said “Nick Davis against Jackson State in 1997”, I’d accuse you of looking it up (I had to). But Tolson has six of the nine such performances in school history while playing in the early 1970s. Why is it so hard to get 20 rebounds in the modern game? We saw much that during his last season, as Eric Musselman talked about coaching his shorter roster to tip the ball around if a Hog player couldn’t secure the board himself. Tolson was 6’8 – a giant for the college game in 1972 and 1973 – but 20-rebound performances are rare nowadays. There were only 30 such performances in Division I in 2020, and only two of them by power conference players.

Brandon Allen’s 13 touchdowns against the state of Mississippi in one month

Remember November 2015? The Hogs went 3-1, beating Ole Miss, LSU and Missouri, and Brandon Allen had himself a month. In a 53-52 win over Ole Miss and a 51-50 loss to Mississippi State, Allen was 63 of 86 for 845 yards and 13 touchdowns with zero interceptions. Allen is one of five quarterbacks in SEC history to have multiple 400-yard, 6-touchdown games in a career. All of the others are either named Joe Burrow or were coached by Steve Spurrier or Hal Mumme.

Three NFL players all graduating from Warren in the same year

Warren, Arkansas, has a population of 6000, and in 2008 three of them were future NFL players. Getting three SEC-level starters and NFL-caliber players from a 4A school in a single recruiting cycle is a record that will be hard to top. Other Arkansas high schools have tried: 2006’s infamous “Springdale Five” featured five players supposed to be SEC-level… but one of them went to Notre Dame, and Mitch Mustain, Ben Cleveland, and Andrew Norman didn’t exactly pan out. Only Damian Williams was a consistent Power Five starter (at USC) and NFL player. In fact, the very same 2008 class that included Wright, Childs, and Gragg featured four graduates of nearby Camden Fairview, but De’Anthony Curtis, Jim Youngblood, Lavunce Askew, and Brian Christopher aren’t exactly written into Razorback lore, although Curtis and Askew did see the field plenty during their careers.

Cobi Hamilton’s 300-yard receiving game

This game has been memory-holed by Hog fans because of the horrifying white helmets on red jerseys and the fact that it was a 35-26 loss to Rutgers, but it’s a shame how few fans remember that Cobi Hamilton set the SEC single-game record for receiving yards with his 10-catch, 303-yard performance. Hamilton’s incredible game came one year after Jarius Wright set the school single-game receiving record with 281 yards on 12 catches in a 42-38 win over Texas A&M. Arkansas’ program dysfunction in 2012 was otherworldly, and hopefully we never see anything like it again, though I’d still like to have that offense.

Frank Broyles’ 144 career wins

Sam Pittman will be 60 when he coaches his first game, so it’s hard to see a scenario where Pittman wins 144 or more games at Arkansas. That means any coach capable of breaking Broyles’ record won’t even notch his first win at Arkansas for a few more years. Actually, forget 144 wins. Will any Hog football coach stay 19 seasons in Fayetteville again?

Definitely breakable

Unlike the records above, these records will almost certainly fall, perhaps sooner rather than later.

Isaiah Joe’s 60 made threes in SEC play in one season

Joe broke Anthlon Bell’s record (52) in 2019, and both Rotnei Clarke and Dusty Hannahs have multiple entries in the top 10 of this list, so this record is under constant siege. The move to 18 SEC games and coach Eric Musselman’s emphasis on three-point shooting means this one may be broken a couple more times over the next decade, perhaps again by Joe himself.

Marcus Monk’s 27 career receiving touchdowns

There are several receiving records that could fall as football becomes more pass-friendly. Monk’s 27 career touchdown receptions are still the most in school history. Jeremy Sprinkle owns the school’s career tight end receiving touchdowns record, with 11. Both of those may fall in the next 10 years or so.

Matt Jones’ 92-yard touchdown pass

Green’s 99-yard touchdown run will never be broken, but there’s seven yards to spare on the all-time passing touchdown list. The current record was set in 2002 when Matt Jones hit Richard Smith for a 92-yard touchdown to tie the game against Tennessee in the fourth quarter (the Hogs would lose 41-38 in six overtimes). Next time the Hogs are at their own 1, why not try a bomb?

Can you think of any other Razorback records that will never be broken? Let us know in the comments!