Napoleon Kaufman was just flat out really good at that whole “running the ball for a whole lot of yards and punishing opposing defenses” thing. Truly one of the most remarkable running backs the Washington Huskies (and college football out on the West Coast) has ever seen. And you could probably argue that he was among the most impressive in college football history. I’d be willing to hear you out on that.
Kaufman was just so dang good and he got better each and every season that he played for the Huskies. So much so that he managed to run for at least 1,000 yards three times in a row for UW and he happened to gain more and more yards each and every season.
That, my friends, is really impressive stuff.
During the 1994 Washington Husky football season, Kaufman had his most productive (yardage wise, at least) season in his college football career. Kaufman ran for 1390 yards and he averaged 5.5 yards per carry.
By this point in time, everyone knew that Kaufman would be running the ball. He was going to get it very, very often whenever Washington was on offense. And there was still no stopping him.
Washington Husky football history: Napoleon Kaufman was borderline unstoppable for the Huskies in 1994
He truly does deserve so much credit and recognition. Kaufman managed to average 126.4 rushing yards per game (which currently ranks as the No. 4 highest season rushing yard per game average in Husky football history) and he scored nine touchdowns along the way.
Against San Jose State, Kaufman ran for 254 yards. Against the Ohio State Buckeyes, Kaufman gained 211 yards. Heck, Kaufman averaged 6.6 yards per carry against that Buckeyes defense. He was really, really good.
Throughout the entirety of his career, Kaufman managed to run for 4,106 yards on 735 carries (which is a lot of carries). He had 17 games where he ran for at least 100 yards against opponents and scored 34 rushing touchdowns throughout his career. The man's college football career was as impressive as his name is (it's a really, really cool name).