Eli Gillman broke Cooper Kupp’s Big Sky total touchdown record on Saturday, and he did it with a burst Montana could not miss: four rushing touchdowns in a 57-24 win. Gillman finished with 78 career total touchdowns, moving past Kupp for the conference mark in a game that kept his name at the center of college football’s Week 10 conversation.
The search for the Osu Game is part of a crowded day in the sport, with ranked-vs.-ranked matchups and playoff pressure shaping the board around it. No. 13 Tennessee was just outside the projected CFP bracket, No. 6 Kentucky was chasing its first win over Tennessee since Oct. 17, 2020, No. 10 Ole Miss was trying to avoid falling to 6-3, and No. 11 Notre Dame was sitting at 7-1 and on the edge of the CFP picture. Gillman’s night still cut through all of that because the record changed immediately, in real time, while the rest of the country was watching scores stack up.
His line was the kind that explains why the record fell so fast. Gillman rushed for 196 yards on eight carries, scored all four of his touchdowns on the ground and added a 48-yard catch, a night efficient enough to erase Kupp from the top of the Big Sky total touchdown list. The breakthrough, though, stops short of the broader FCS standard. Brian Westbrook’s 89 total touchdowns still sit ahead, which leaves Gillman 11 behind the all-time mark even after the latest climb to 78.
That gap matters because it turns one conference record into a chase that is not finished. The Big Sky mark is now Gillman’s, but the all-time FCS number remains a different climb entirely, and every touchdown from here changes the math again. In the same live update window, Brevard College’s Alex Araneda drilled a 63-yard field goal against Methodist to break the DIII record, while Oregon found the end zone with two seconds left in the half against Ohio State, a reminder that Saturday’s scoreboard was moving fast enough to reshape more than one record book at once.
Gillman has already taken one landmark off the board. The next one is bigger, farther away and still within reach if he keeps scoring at this pace.
