Ron Dayne – 25th Anniversary Heisman Trophy Profile
There’s being the big man on campus, and then there’s being Ron Dayne.
The Heisman Trophy’s 25th Anniversary Award winner from Wisconsin, Dayne cast a Paul Bunyan-sized shadow on college football — if we can borrow an analogy from the Badgers’ rival state.
No? Then let’s settle on the NCAA’s Big Cheese.
However you slice it, Dayne dominated the discourse during the late 1990s in Madison, where he became a living legend during four seasons at Camp Randall.
At 5-10, Dayne hit the scales in the vicinity of 270 pounds but could run a 40-yard-dash like a sprinter, attributes that beg for nicknames.
There was the Dayne Train and Great Dayne. But to defensive players who saw No. 33 barreling downhill at them, it was more like Ron “I dare you to tackle me” Dayne. And few could do it without help.
Dayne’s rushing exploits at Wisconsin under head coach Barry Alvarez were so prolific he broke the NCAA rushing record as a senior, shattering 1998 Heisman winner Ricky Williams’ one-year-old mark.
If, when Dayne played, the NCAA counted bowl game stats to tabulate career records, he would still be the official rushing king of Division 1 football.
That said, anyone with a remote tie to Badger sports considers Dayne rushing royalty anyway, crown or not, no asterisk needed.
Born in Blacksburg, Va., Dayne came from humble beginnings, extended family and close friends helping to raise he and his sister in New Jersey.
He attended Overbrook High in Pine Hill, N.J., where he dominated both on the gridiron and on the track. He rushed for 1,566 yards as a prep junior and 1,785 yards as a senior, scoring a combined 51 touchdowns as an upperclassmen. On the track, he won state titles in both the shot put and discuss with nationally ranked marks.
Dayne was recruited chiefly as a fullback, understandably. Some schools even pegged him as a potential lineman.
But Alvarez saw in Dayne the potential to follow in the footsteps of the many big backs that had been making big waves in football like Notre Dame’s Jerome Bettis and Pitt’s Craig Heywood.
And Alvarez nailed it.
Dayne is soft-spoken by nature, but his play spoke volumes. He proved to be an instant smash at Wisconsin, setting NCAA freshman records for rushing yards (1,863) and carries (295) and tying Heisman winner Herschel Walker’s NCAA freshman mark of four 200-yard games. He ran for 246 yards in Wisconsin’s 1996 bowl win, giving him a Big Ten record 2,109 yards.
He gained 1,457 yards as a sophomore (including 36 in a bowl loss) in 10 games in the most modest season of his four-year Badger run.
As a 1998 junior, Dayne led Wisconsin to an 11-1 record and a Rose Bowl win over UCLA, where he ran for 246 yards and four scores. For the season, he rushed for 1,525 yards (including the bowl game).
Dayne flirted with the idea of turning pro after the big game against the Bruins, but returned as a 1999 senior to complete a historically epic career.
Dayne did not crack the 1998 Heisman Top 10 voting. But as Heisman aspirations go, all returning players caught a break as the top 10 1998 Heisman vote-getters all moved on to the NFL. That left Dayne on the short list of Heisman favorites as a senior.
The Badgers and Dayne opened the 1999 season against a pair of overmatched foes, defeating Murray State, 49-10, and Ball State, 50-10. Dayne had a combined 293 yards and four touchdowns in the pair of blowouts.
Game 3 saw Dayne turn in a season-high 231 yards on 28 carries and one touchdown, but the No. 9 Badgers fell to host Cincinnati, 17-12, three turnovers costing Wisconsin dearly, including two fourth-quarter fumbles.
A week later, Dayne and Wisconsin hosted No. 5 Michigan in the Big Ten opener and lost another one-score affair, 21-16, losing to a Wolverine team led by quarterback Tom Brady for the second year in a row. Dayne had 88 yards and scored once, but didn’t gain a yard in the second half on eight carries.
The second straight loss, and Dayne’s inability to come up big, were an early blow to Dayne’s burgeoning Heisman campaign. But the schedule offered a perfect platform to generate momentum — an away date at Ohio State.
Things looked bleak at the outset as the Buckeyes raced to a 17-0 lead. But Wisconsin scored the game’s final 42 points for a 42-17 win that kickstarted a winning streak that would culminate in Pasadena.
Dayne ran for 161 yards on 32 carries against Ohio State and scored a career-high-tying four touchdowns, all in the second half, to lead the Badgers to the first of five wins over ranked teams in the final two months of the season.
Wisconsin stayed on the road the following week for a date with rival No. 18 Minnesota.
Dayne posted a season-low 80 yards and one score but every bit helped as the Badgers outlasted the Gophers in their first-ever overtime game, 20-17. It also gave Wisconsin its first-ever back-to-back wins over ranked opponents as the Badgers maintained possession of the border rivalry’s trophy, the Paul Bunyan Axe.
Back in Madison the next week, Dayne ran for 167 yards on just 17 carries while scoring twice — all in the first half — as the Badgers blanked Indiana, 59-0. Dayne became just the fifth running back in NCAA history to rush for more than 1,000 yards in four straight seasons. Tony Dorsett is the only other Heisman winner to do it.
Wisconsin welcomed Nick Saban-coached Michigan State the next week and took on the Spartans’ top-ranked rushing defense. The Badgers absolutely shredded it as Dayne ran for 214 yards on 34 carries and two scores, Wisconsin breezing to a 40-10 win.
Saban praised Dayne after the game, saying: “There’s been some other guys that are a little more flashy. Sometimes because of their great speed or big-play ability or whatever, they flash to you and impress you. But down in and down out, he’s just a tough guy to deal with and a tough guy to tackle. He’s about as good as anybody I’ve ever seen.”
Dayne passed USC Heisman winner White for third place on the career NCAA rushing chart against the Spartans and moved to within 483 yards of Williams’ record with three games to go.
A road date at unranked Northwestern was not as pretty as the previous handful of wins as the No. 11 Badgers were out-gained by the Wildcats. But they were not outscored as Dayne rushed for 162 yards on a season-high 35 carries and two scores in the 35-19 victory. His late 5-yard run iced the game and tied the Big Ten career record for rushing scores at 68.
A game behind Penn State in the race for another Rose Bowl berth, Wisconsin traveled to No. 17 Purdue for a Nov. 6 date against the Drew Brees-led Boilermakers. Dayne ran for 222 yards on 32 carries in a 28-21 win and the Badgers outlasted Brees and his 350 passing yards. Coupled with Penn State’s first loss of the year, Wisconsin was now tied atop the Big Ten.
The Heisman race was tilting heavily in Dayne’s favor at this point and it set up Dayne for an epic Senior Day in Madison. Not only was a potential Big Ten title on the line, but an NCAA rushing record was also in sight.
Wisconsin welcomed a one-win Iowa team into Camp Randall and the game was as one-sided as one might imagine, a 41-3 romp that clinched the Badgers’ second straight Rose Bowl.
That helped the focus remain on Dayne, who was cheered by some 80,000 Wisconsin fans waving white “Dayne 33” towels.
After a quiet first quarter, the crowd erupted in the second when Dayne broke Williams’ NCAA career rushing record on a 31-yard burst. He finished with 216 yards on 27 carries, ending the historic day with 6.397 yards, 118 more than his soon-to-be Heisman fraternity brother.
The game also marked Dayne’s 11th 200-yard rushing game, matching the NCAA mark shared by Williams and another Heisman winner, USC’s Marcus Allen.
After the game, the school unveiled his No. 33 on the Camp Randall Stadium press box, a hint at a jersey retirement that came a few years later.
The Heisman voting was a formality as Dayne got 586 of the 921 first-place votes and finished with 2,042 points, well-ahead of second-place Georgia Tech quarterback Joe Hamilton (944). Virginia Tech freshman QB Michael Vick was third (319), Brees fourth (308).
Dayne, who became a father during his time at Wisconsin, had 2-year-old daughter Jada with him in New York when he accepted the Badgers’ second Heisman Trophy.
“If I’m having a bad day at practice or I’m having a bad day at school, I can look at her and forget all about it,” said Dayne. “I want to thank Jada for being the biggest inspiration in my life.”
Dayne also won the Maxwell, Walter Camp and Doak Walker Awards that December ahead of Wisconsin’s second straight Rose Bowl.
On the first day of the new century, Dayne and Wisconsin defeated Stanford, 17-9. Dayne was named Rose Bowl MVP for the second straight season, rushing for 200 yards and a third-quarter 4-yard TD.
In the Badgers’ consecutive Rose Bowl wins, Dayne rushed for a combined 446 yards. He’s the only Big Ten player in history to win back-to-back Rose Bowl MVP awards.
Dayne finished his college career with — including bowl games — 7,125 yards and 71 touchdowns.
He was taken 11th overall by the New York Giants in the 2000 NFL Draft and played seven seasons in the league, including four in New York, one in Denver and two in Houston. He finished with 3,722 yards and 28 touchdowns.
Dayne’s No. 33 was officially retired by Wisconsin in 2007. He was inducted into the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame in 2011 and into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2013.
In 2018, he officially graduated from Wisconsin after returning to school to complete a handful of outstanding credits that remained after he started his professional football career.
Dayne’s daughter Jada earned her own slice of Heisman history by become a 2015 Heisman Scholarship finalist ahead of her four-year career as a women’s soccer player at Michigan. Dayne’s son Javian graduated from Boston College, where he also played running back.
Congratulations to our Heisman Trophy 25th Anniversary winner, Ron Dayne!
