Ron Dayne Celebrated At Camp Randall For 25th Anniversary Of 1999 Heisman

Ron Dayne, the 1999 Heisman Trophy winner celebrating the 25th anniversary of his epic award-winning season, was honored at Camp Randall Stadium in front of an adoring Badgers’ home crowd on Saturday (Sept. 14).

Wisconsin Athletic Director Chris McIntosh (a teammate of Dayne’s while playing in Madison), Badger coaching great Barry Alvarez and Heisman Trophy Trust Associate Director Tim Henning  were on hand to honor Dayne between the first and second quarters of the game against Alabama. 

“Ron Dayne set the NCAA Division I career rushing record and won the Heisman Trophy and we are proud to celebrate the 25th-anniversary of that 1999 season,” McIntosh said in a statement. “That was one of the great years in the history of both our football program and athletic department. Ron was a unique combination of size, speed and power and he epitomized the blue-collar, hard-nosed style of football our team played. Along with my teammates on the offensive line, I am proud to have blocked for Ron and to have helped him and the rest of our team accomplish our goals. Ron is college football’s career rushing leader and no debate over whether his bowl game statistics count changes that.”

Dayne, who broke the NCAA career rushing record during his Heisman-winning season, officially finished his career with 6,397 yards. The key word here being officially.

But at the time Dayne finished his Badger career, the NCAA did not include bowl games in players’ career totals. With bowl games, Dayne finished with 7,125 career rushing yards.

Dayne paid homage to his true career yardage total before the game while visiting the set of of Fox Sports’ Big Noon Kickoff, wearing a tee-shirt featuring his historic yardage total on it. He was greeted on set by fellow Heisman winners and Fox co-hosts Mark Ingram and Matt Leinart while fellow Badger great and 2014 Heisman finalist Melvin Gordon joined the group, too.

Not until 2002 did the NCAA reverse course on its rules about bowl stats, but the organization chose not to retroactively add bowl stats to past players.

So technically, San Diego State’s Donnel Pumphrey holds the NCAA record with 6,405 yards, but that, of course, includes his bowl stats. Dayne also reached his yards total in 43 games while Pumphrey did it in 54.

In fact, if you include bowl game, Heisman winners Dayne (7,125), Ricky Williams (6,592) and Tony Dorsett (6,526) hold the top three spots with Heisman winner Charles White fifth (6,245).

Watch this Big Ten Network profile of Dayne below.