Antioch running back Najee Harris, one of the nation’s top 2017 prospects, gains yards Friday in first half vs. Rancho Cotate. Photo: Harold Abend.
Two RBs named Harris – a senior from Tulare and a junior from Antioch — got us motivated to post new list of state’s all-time career rushing leaders. We also review the single-game and single-season QB sack records and go over new schools that have joined those with 500 or more all-time varsity wins.
NOTE: All of the state record lists referenced in this post are for Gold Club members only. This is an ever-building series of state record files we’re constantly adding to this site. You can see them all anytime as a Gold Club member and it’s information that is not available on MaxPreps, not available through the CIF or from any newspaper. It’s only on Cal-Hi Sports and for Gold Club members. Sign up today, help us keep doing this work and enjoy. For details, CLICK HERE.
By the end of this season, barring injury, Tulare running back Romello Harris could be the new leader on the CIF Central Section career rushing list, according to our friend and longtime contributor, Bob Barnett, the section’s historian and record-keeper.
Tulare running back Romello Harris is in midst of third straight prolific season. Photo: CentralValleyFootball.com.
On Friday night, Harris had a rough time, suffering a broken finger while covering the opening kickoff in unbeaten Tulare’s 45-19 triumph over Kingsburg. Still, after getting 390 yards the week before, Harris has a career total of 6,315 yards that is in the state record book and is fourth overall in the section. If he misses any more time, though, that will be hard for him to reach 8,000 career yards and the section record total of 8,029 set two years ago by Mendota’s Edgar Segura.
Over in Antioch, meanwhile, another RB named Harris, the sensational 6-foot-2, 225-pound junior Najee Harris, has been piling up yards and accolades for two seasons now. In his game on Friday night, the Alabama commit and big-time recruit got zero carries in the second half due to the lopsided nature of his team’s 54-14 win over Rancho Cotate of Rohnert Park. Still, he rushed for 224 yards on 17 carries and scored two TDs and broke the school career TD record in just the fourth game of his junior season.
According to Najee, the two Harrises are not related. Still, the namesakes have enthralled us enough so far this season so that we decided to do an update of the career state rushing list this week. For his career, Najee already has nearly 3,400 yards. He may get above 5,000 by the end of this season.
Other seniors this season who probably will be added to the all-time state career list at the end of the season include Melquise Stovall from Paraclete of Lancaster, Freddy Holly of Riverside Norte Vista and Elijah Preston of San Diego St. Augustine.
Jacksonville Jaguars running back Toby Gerhart of Norco set the current state record at 9,662 in 2005. His record appears safe since it requires three 3,000-yard seasons or at least two plus another 1,000 as a freshman. While the Harris RBs are great, they aren’t going to get that many yards into what we’d call Toby Territory.
FOR A LOOK AT THE UP-TO-DATE LIST OF THE STATE’S ALL-TIME CAREER RUSHING LEADERS, CLICK HERE.
The major news for state records from the previous weekend was a 10-sack performance for one game by senior Hunter Cabral from Sierra Pacific of Hanford.
Totals like that can be suspicious, but it was reported to us by a prep writer, Josh Butters of the Hanford Sentinel, who covered the game. Nine of Cabral’s sacks came in just the second half alone in a 41-14 win by Sierra Pacific over Riverdale.
Cabral set a new state record with that total and it was half the total he had (20.5) for all of last season. If you’re wondering, he’d need to get to 34 to tie the state single season record set in 2004 by Ben Viramontes of South Gate.
The CIF Central Section record of 26 set in 1985 by Ron Cox from Easton Washington certainly is reachable for Cabral as well. Cox later played eight years in the NFL, including one Super Bowl appearance with the Green Bay Packers.
FOR A LOOK AT THE STATE SINGLE-GAME DEFENSIVE RECORDS WITH HUNTER CABRAL NOW ADDED, CLICK HERE.
Greig Welch was the principal of Paso Robles High in San Luis Obispo County for eight years and when he retired a few years ago after a 34-year educational career he decided to fill a major hole in Paso Robles’ athletic history by looking up all of the school’s game scores.
The Paso Robles football team has won more than 530 games since 1919. There may be even a few more wins from earlier than that, but not likely. Photo: school web site.
We had heard that “a retired principal” had already provided this information to the school when we contacted the athletic department last May about doing this work as part of an initiative in which 16 schools from around the state eventually signed up to get.
While we’re sorry we didn’t get the business, we certainly applaud Greig for doing the research. It’s not easy and way, way under-appreciated by schools, media, coaches and fans.
In contacting us last week, Grieg sheepishly asked if our organization could use his Paso Robles all-time football record of 538-326-28 since 1919. The answer is of course because we include every school we have with 500 wins or more in the state record book.
Of the 16 schools we completed a few weeks ago, those also going into the book at 500 or more were Lompoc (549), Escalon (524) and Tracy (513).
There are currently 34 known schools in the state that have reached the 500-win total. We assume there are more since it only requires an average of five wins per season for 100 years and we have a growing number of schools that are getting that old. Among those we believe have that many wins (but we don’t know the totals) are Alameda, Santa Cruz and Napa.
Chico started the year with 495 reported wins and entered its game on Friday of this week with 497.
FOR AN UPDATED LOOK AT THE LIST OF SCHOOLS IN THE STATE WITH THE MOST ALL-TIME VARSITY WINS, CLICK HERE.
Mark Tennis is the co-founder and publisher of CalHiSports.com. He can be reached at markjtennis@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow Mark on the Cal-Hi Sports Twitter handle: @CalHiSports
