College
Vaughn had a short collegiate career for the University of Michigan Wolverines, but he played for back-to-back Big Ten Conference Champions. He accumulated rushing statistics in only sixteen NCAA games for the Wolverines over the course of two seasons. However, in his redshirt sophomore 1990 season he was selected Co-Big Ten Offensive Football Player of the year (along with University of Iowa Hawkeyes players Nick Bell and Matt Rodgers) by the conference's coaches when he started 11 of 12 games. Vaughn, who wore #25 for the Michigan Wolverines football program in 1989 and 1990, played running back after redshirting as a defensive back who wore #46 in 1988.
Vaughn has claims to several important distinctions in University of Michigan Football history. First, he continues to hold the University of Michigan career yards per attempt record (minimum 200 attempts). Second, he opened the 1990 season by posting 201 rushing yards on September 15, 1990 against University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish and following it up with 288 rushing yards against the University of California, Los Angeles Bruins on September 22, 1990 at the Big House. This feat made him the first Michigan back to rush for 200 yards in consecutive games, a feat not duplicated until Mike Hart did so in 2004. His third claim is that the 288-yard effort ranks third on the All-time Michigan single game rushing yards list (behind Ron Johnson's 347 yards in 1968 against the Wisconsin Badgers and Tshimanga Biakabutuka's 313 yards against the Ohio State Buckeyes in 1995). In addition to these claims, his 1,364 yards rushing that season still ranks 13th on the Michigan all-time single season rushing list. During that redshirt sophomore season he paired with freshman Ricky Powers who set the Michigan freshman rushing record later broken by Hart and who tied with Vaughn for a team-high five 100-yard rushing games although accumulating far fewer total yards than Vaughn.
During the 1990 season Vaughn was closely watched in the press. NCAA football rushing averages are calculated on a per game basis. Since Vaughn started the season with two 200-yard efforts, he was atop the rushing charts well into the season. He entered Michigan's seventh game the weekend of October 28, 1990 as the nation's leading rusher. Entering the eighth week he was averaging over 144 yards per game and was still second in the nation and first in the Big Ten. He only gained a total of 94 yards in his ninth, tenth and eleventh games combined and entered Michigan's bowl game as #11 in the nation. He ran for 128 yards in his final game and ended the season as the Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year. He also ended the season eleventh in the nation in rushing and second in the Big Ten with 112.4 yards per game.
Oddly, despite his eventual professional success as a kickoff returner, he never returned kickoffs in college. In 1990, Desmond Howard and Derrick Alexander shared the kick return duties. In 1989, Desmond Howard and Tony Boles shared the role.
Read more about this topic: Jon Vaughn
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