FAU Football: 5-step roadmap for how Devin Singletary wins the 2018 Heisman Trophy

3. Singletary will have to run for at least 37 touchdowns this year

Last year Singletary was the only player in the country to average more than two rushing touchdowns per game. Given what that did for his Heisman chances as a sophomore last year, the FAU speedster will need to do more than that in 2018. Singletary needs to add at least eight more touchdowns to his 2017 total of 29 regular-season rushing scores.

Why eight? To really put his name on the Heisman radar, Singletary needs to chase the longstanding single-season record set by a past Heisman winner. When Barry Sanders won the award at Oklahoma State in 1988, he set the NCAA record with 37 touchdowns in 11 games. Since that point, every elite running back has chased that mark in vain.

Only four other players have even broken the 30-touchdown barrier at the FBS level. Singletary pulled off the feat as a sophomore, giving him at least this season to try to better his mark and bolster his NFL Draft status. Even hitting 30 rushing scores would make Singletary the first player in FBS history to notch two consecutive 30-touchdown seasons, a mark that would be impressive enough on its own.

But there would be no better way to do that than to at least tie Sanders’ record during the regular season. To break Sanders’ touchdowns-per-game record, Singletary would need to score 44 touchdowns in the regular season and C-USA championship game. That might be too much to ask. At the very least, though, matching 37 touchdowns before the postseason would be a feat that would put the Florida Atlantic ground-gainer in rarefied air.