Waipahu running back Alfred Failauga is Hawaii’s all-time career rushing record holder.
The 5-foot-11, 190-pound senior broke Vavae Malepeai‘s mark of 4,549 yards on a 4-yard run midway through the first quarter of tonight’s game against No. 9 Leilehua at Hugh Yoshida Stadium.
HISTORIC MOMENT: #Waipahu’s Alfred Failauga passes #Mililani legend @vavaeee’s 4,549 yards on #Hawaii #HighSchoolFootball’s career rushing list @dmccrackenKHON @Ren_Clapton @WaipahuHigh #Cover2 // https://t.co/9oZimTtTXJ 🤙🏽 pic.twitter.com/gLMvqTUS9D
— Rob DeMello (@RobDeMelloKHON) August 17, 2019
Failauga rushed for 186 yards and a touchdown on 39 carries in a 23-13 loss.
Waipahu’s Alfred Failauga on progressing from a freshman on the varsity to breaking the state rushing record as a senior. @HawaiiPrepWorld pic.twitter.com/N3yGBeMYJf
— Jason Kaneshiro (@jasonkaneshiro) August 17, 2019
Malepeai, a three-year starter at Mililani from 2013-15, broke Joe Igber‘s record of 4,428 yards that had stood for 17 years.
Now a redshirt junior at Southern California, Malepeai congratulated Failauga on breaking his mark.
“Congratulations to Alfred on setting the record. Records are meant to be broken and I’m proud of him,” Malepeai said this week. “He is taking it all to a new level.
“I know how it feels to carry the ball a lot and pick up yards. But I know, like me, he credits his teammates for his success. I would tell him to continue doing what he’s doing, keep God first and keep being a leader. And keep grinding and having fun, because at the end of the day football is just a game.”
Failauga is playing in his 33rd varsity game and began the day with 4,495 rushing yards and 50 touchdowns on 715 carries.
Through his first two games of the season, Failauga has rushed for 576 yards and seven touchdowns, including a school-record 342 yards in a win over Castle last week.
Waipahu has six more games in the regular season and could play as many as five games in the OIA playoffs and HHSAA state tournament. Only four players have ever rushed for 2,000 yards in a single season — Igber, Randall Okimoto (Farrington), Mark Atuaia (Kahuku) and Kama Bailey (Damien).
To view the rushing record book, click here.
Hawaii HS career rushing record is 4K yds.
Can you imagine for a moment that former Alabama RB Derrick Henry ran for 4K yds in only his senior year of HS! He has over 12K rushing yds for his career.
“INSANE” That’s why Alabama is always playing for ships.
I think that “records” need to be established for different tiers of division. Trying to get yardage in the Open division is much harder. Congrats Alfred, just saying.
>>Cryhyn
Or the number of games you play. Every year, every game is different. A record is a record. Malepeai got his numbers playing against teams like Kailua, McKinley, Aiea, etc. as well.
Does this kid really have zero D1 college offers? That doesn’t make sense.
>>Falcon Future
Kahale Huddleston was surely the best RB in the state in 2017 but he didn’t get any D1 FBS offers (including Hawaii) either, and when he walked-on, he was converted to slotback. Recent RBs from Hawaii haven’t fared too well at the college level. Even Malepeai is underperforming (relative to the hype he got). Enoch Nawahine didn’t get an offer either and grayshirted to play at Utah State.
I guess Hawaii is too aerial-heavy as a whole for recruiters to be able to judge players’ abilities from stats and tape alone.
I agree w/Cryhyn…
Not correct comparing apples to oranges. I wouldn’t want to break the news to Malepeai that he just got taken off the record because he got out beat in yardage by a RB in the Div I or Div II level.
It’s like saying that a RB in Div II college football who ran more than any RB in Div I level is better. Yeah… he may have ran more yards…. but is he better? What would happen if the Div I RB played in the lower Div II level? I’m guessing…. more yards.
Also to note… if i read correctly, Malepeai did it in 3 seasons. I believe that might be the same for the Iolani kid Igber. Correct me if I’m wrong, but i think ILH didn’t allow freshman’s at the varsity level…. if so, that would also have only been three seasons for Igber.
@Wainakea, good points by you, but keep in mind that Alfred is now the ALL-TIME leading rusher in Hawaii history. He has been the starter and 1,000 yard rusher since his freshman year. He is NOT under anybody’s radar and the fact that not a single one D1 school is willing to take a chance on this kid is a head scratcher.
Malepeai may not be a Heisman candidate, but he is in the mix to be the starting tailback at USC. Thats a huge honor no matter what his stats end up. All the other Hawaii running backs on the all-time list got a chance in D1: Igber (Cal), Atuaia (BYU), Wily (UH), Bailey (Idaho), Tatupu (USC).
No disrespect to Huddleston and Nawahine, but those guys are not on the ALL-TIME rushing list so I don’t want to use them in this comparison.
By Hawaii standards hes good but he cant stack up to other RB’s across the nation.
Unless one of the Academies recruit him.
I would like to see how he would do against Open teams.
@ILH love the opinion , to everyone in the comment section idk how long this has been going on for but I’m honestly proud to read all of theses comments and I thank a lot of you for the love and support but I’ll be continuing my journey at a juco called “garden city” in Kansas. Despite the record book I respect all players grind to the next level. @ILH watch me !!!