RB Respect Month Vol. 3, Day Eight: Mike Alstott rumbles over Indiana (1995)
THE A-TRAIN!
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Welcome to day eight of Running Back Respect Month! Yesterday, Julius Jones provided Notre Dame a bright spot in an otherwise ugly 2003 season. Here's where we're at today, and how the rest of the month looks:
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Today: Mike Alstott vs. Indiana (1995)
RB Respect Month Vol. 3, Day Eight: Mike Alstott rumbles over Indiana (1995)
In my three years of doing RB Respect Month, I'm not sure I've mentioned fullbacks more than a couple times. It's been a disgusting oversight, if we're being honest. Think about it: the vast majority of games, players, and performances I've written about took place in the 1970s, 80s, 90s, and early 2000s - AKA the glory days of the fullback. It's not like the past 15 years, where the concept of full-time fullbacks has mostly been dead to everyone in the sport not named Kyle Shanahan. A ton of the praise I've lauded on running backs wouldn't have been possible without the human meat-shields in front of them clearing a path. Fullbacks played a massive role in the era of superstar running backs, in both college and the NFL. You think Emmitt Smith dedicated an entire portion of his Hall of Fame speech to Moose Johnston while bawling his eyes out just because?
There is no RB Respect Month without the contributions of fullbacks, and that's why it's finally time to induct one into the RBRM fraternity. What better fullback to start with than the A-Train, Mike Alstott?
Before he spent 11 seasons kicking ass in the NFL with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Alstott did just about everything for Purdue's offense in his four seasons in West Lafayette. It won't shock you that he was a devastating blocker in college. It might that he ran for 3,635 yards, though - or that he's still Purdue's all-time leading rusher 31 years after graduating. Blocking and running were just part of what made him such a great player, though. Alstott was just as versatile in the passing game as he was physical in the run game. He caught 93 passes for 1075 yards and three TD in his career, showcasing the type of skillset you'd love to have in a three-down running back!
What makes his time at Purdue even more impressive is that the teams around him weren't very good (13-28-3 in his four years). With due respect to the majority of the Boilermakers' 1992-95 rosters, Alstott was far and away their best player. Despite being the main focus of every opponent, they still couldn't stop him.
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After running for 1,188 yards as a junior in 1994, Alstott hit a new gear in 1995. His 1,436 yards on the ground are still a single-season Purdue record - good enough for 13th nationally that year. He cracked 100 yards in nine of eleven games, including 200 twice. The second of those 200-yarders came in his final game at Purdue, when he ran 25 times for 264 yards and 3 TD against rival Indiana in a 51-14 win:
The 264 yards are second-most in program history, and contain everything that put Mike Alstott in a different category from any other fullback. Who else had this type of power, speed, vision, and quickness?
He was shaking dudes in the fourth quarter after he'd already had 20 carries and blocked the entire game, too:
This run is exactly why Chris Berman eventually started making sound effects on Alstott's highlights when he got to the league:
Mike Alstott was The Juggernaut in football pads. Playing a position that rarely received any glory, he became a household name among football fans thanks to his unmatched physicality. Hell, he was popular enough to be the cover athlete of an officially licensed NFL video game! He could lead the way for your running back 30 times a game, while also doing everything that guy could with the football in his hands. You can't even call him the last of a dying (at the time) breed, because there was no one like him before or during his time. One of the saddest things about the disappearance of the fullback position is that we've been robbed of more Mike Alstotts in modern football. The re-emergence of it in pockets of the NFL lately has me optimistic that day will come, eventually. Until then, we can only salute the few places fullbacks are used, the legends of the past, and everything that they mean to running the ball and great running back play.
