Photo courtesy: Maggie Stemp-Turner/3DownNation. All rights reserved.

It feels like we should be talking more about the fact that Nick Arbuckle currently leads the Toronto Argonauts in rushing yards. When you really think about it, it’s pretty unbelievable.

The veteran quarterback is having a great season, to be sure. He’s thrown for a league-leading 3,476 yards, putting him almost exactly on pace to match Doug Flutie’s franchise single-season record of 5,720 yards. He’s also thrown 20 touchdown passes, which puts him only one off the league league currently held by Bo Levi Mitchell.

Anytime your name is being mentioned alongside Flutie and Mitchell, you’re doing something right. For a player once heralded as the CFL’s next great quarterback, it feels like Arbuckle has finally arrived after being written off multiple times and almost choosing to retire during the spring of 2024.

Here’s the thing: the 31-year-old has rushed for only 143 yards this season — a decidedly mediocre average of 13 yard per game. Arbuckle has never been a dual-threat passer and that’s remained true this season. The native of Oxnard, Calif. isn’t Toronto’s rushing leader because he’s a dominant runner — it’s because the Argonauts have used five different running backs this year and none of them have had much success.

With this in mind, I set out to gain some historical context for Arbuckle’s rushing, ahem, prowess. He’s on pace for 234 rushing yards this season, which would be the fewest ever by an Argonauts single-season rushing leader.

According to data provided to 3DownNation by CFL statistician Jeff Krever, the smallest amount of yardage ever accrued by a single-season rushing leader in Toronto is 284, which came courtesy of Ricky Turner in 1985.

Turner was a quarterback who played only nine career regular-season CFL games, throwing four touchdown passes and nine interceptions. The Washington State product is one of four quarterbacks ever to lead Toronto in rushing alongside Tracy Ham, Rickey Foggie, and Chuck Ealey, though they each accrued far more yardage.

Turner is Toronto’s only single-season leading rusher to finish with fewer than 350 yards, though he played at a time when the CFL regular-season schedule was only 16 games long. Below is a list of the team’s lowest single-season rushing leaders since 1958, including the length of the respective season for additional context.

Ricky Turner, 1985 (16 games) — 284 yards
Bill Symons, 1973 (14 games) — 358 yards
Craig Ellis, 1986 (18 games) — 381 yards
John White, 2021 (18 games) — 450 yards
James Wilder Jr., 2019 (18 games) — 460 yards
Jim Vollenweider, 1964 (14 games) — 464 yards
Chad Kackert, 2013 (18 games) — 480 yards

It’s obviously possible that one of Toronto’s running backs will surpass Arbuckle for the rushing lead and eventually eclipse Turner’s benchmark of 284 rushing yards.

Deonta McMahon and Spencer Brown, the latter of whom ran for a team single-game season-high of 85 yards just last week, both remain on the active roster, while Miyan Williams may yet return from injured reserve. McMahon needs 148 yards to catch Turner, Brown needs 195, and Williams needs 182.

Regardless, the fact that Arbuckle is in position to make history with only seven regular-season games left feels noteworthy. In sports, we often track historical races to the top. I’d argue that it’s just as interesting to track historical races to the bottom — especially for a team with as much rich history as the Toronto Argonauts.

The Argonauts (3-8) will visit the Hamilton Tiger-Cats (6-4) at Hamilton Stadium on Monday, September 1 with kickoff slated for 2:30 p.m. EDT. The Argonauts are coming off a blowout win over B.C., while the Tiger-Cats were recently on a bye.

The weather forecast in Hamilton calls for a high of 22 degrees with a mix of sun and cloud. The game will be broadcast on TSN in Canada, CBS Sports Network in the United States, and CFL+ internationally. Radio listeners can tune-in on TSN 1050 in Toronto and the Ticats Audio Network in Hamilton.