Indiana junior Tevin Coleman ran for 130 yards in the Hoosiers' 23-16 win over Purdue and became the 18th player in FBS history to rush for 2,000 yards in a single season.
Coleman finishes the season with 2,036 rushing yards and ran for at least 100 yards 11 times. He also had four 200-yard games, including a 307-yard outing.
He had 29 carries Saturday, his second-highest total of the season. Indiana finished 4-8, and coach Kevin Wilson's job status is in doubt. He's 14-34 in four seasons with the Hoosiers.
The Big Ten already had one player, Wisconsin's Melvin Gordon, hit the 2,000-yard mark this season, and Coleman is the third Big Ten runner to reach the plateau; the first was Penn State's Larry Johnson in 2002. This would mark the first time in FBS history that a conference has had two 2,000-yard rushers in the same season.
Coleman has been a one-man gang on offense for much of the season because IU lost its top two quarterbacks to season-ending injuries and had to turn to a true freshman who was supposed to be redshirted. Coleman still managed to put up big numbers, and NFL Media analyst Bucky Brooks wrote that "so much production against a variety of loaded boxes suggests that he has the stuff needed to be a feature back at the next level." Brooks also wrote that Coleman has "spectacular skills."
Mike Huguenin can be reached at mike.huguenin@nfl.com. You also can follow him on Twitter @MikeHuguenin.
