This wisdom from Marshawn Lynch perfectly encapsulates my thoughts while watching Ashton Jeanty's film at Boise State this season.
"If you just run through somebody's face, a lot of people ain't going to be able to take that over, and over, and over, and over, and over again."
Jeanty was a one-man demolition derby every week on the field in 2024, and part of why I believe I was taken back to that iconic quote from Lynch is because this Boise State superstar emanates Lynch-type vibes toting the rock. And while not Adrian Petersonian untouchable, comparisons to Lynch are extraordinarily rare.
Also tracking with the legendary running back theme, Jeanty is a still-not-21-year-old, former four-star recruit in the 2022 class who has 2,228 yards at 7.3 yards per carry on 312 rushes this season.
The grandiose comparison and Jeanty's historic productivity beg the question -- how good of an NFL prospect is he?
Time to examine.
The Numbers
Let's start with Jeanty's collegiate career to date. Below I've compared them to what feels like a nice collection of the consensus "best" running back prospects over the past five-to-10 years. I included Joe Mixon because of my affinity for his on-field talent at Oklahoma. Career carries are in parentheses after each runner's name. And Breakaway Percentage is the amount of yards a ball-carrier accumulates on runs longer than 15 yards divided by total rushing yards.
| Career Missed Tackles Forced % | Yards After Contact Per Rush | Breakaway % | |
|---|---|---|---|
Ashton Jeanty (688) | 37.1% | 4.78 | 47.3% |
Saquon Barkley (672) | 25.4% | 3.51 | 54.9% |
Bijan Robinson (539) | 39.3% | 4.40 | 43.3% |
Christian McCaffrey (631) | 19.0% | 2.89 | 37.1% |
| Joe Mixon (301) | 26.2% | 3.75 | 52.9% |
| Breece Hall (717) | 27.3% | 3.22 | 46.3% |
Now with the second-largest sample in the group, Jeanty has been the second-most elusive, trailing only Robinson. That's impressive. He's been more effective after contact than everyone else featured here, and has accumulated yards on runs beyond 15 yards at a higher rate than everyone beyond Barkley and Mixon.
Strong showing from a career perspective from Jeanty in all regards, and while he's certainly shouldered a monstrous workload the past two seasons at Boise State, his career rush total isn't so high that it should be a viewed as a clear negative on his draft profile.
Now, those same statistics from a single-season perspective. Without an all-encompassing metric for effectiveness, I used my own discretion to select the individual campaigns from each runner for this table.
| Missed Tackles Forced % | Yards After Contact Per Rush | Breakaway % | |
|---|---|---|---|
2024 Ashton Jeanty | 39.2% | 5.42 | 54.5% |
2015 Saquon Barkley | 32.2% | 3.82 | 53.2% |
2022 Bijan Robinson | 40.4% | 4.17 | 38.6% |
2015 Christian McCaffrey | 21% | 2.62 | 33.7% |
| 2016 Joe Mixon (79) | 25.6% | 3.82 | 56.8% |
| 2021 Breece Hall (134) | 30.1% | 2.83 | 53.3% |
Beyond all the comparisons to the gold-standard season from Barry Sanders in 1988 at Oklahoma State, this table provides evidence of just how historic a season Jeanty has had.
Despite more than 300 carries, he has remained on another planet after contact, hit a ridiculously high rate of splash plays and forced missed tackles at an essentially prime Robinson level.
The Traits
Production is vital when projecting from college to the pros. It's often what draft analysts cling to when defending one of their draft crushes who isn't widely considered a top-tier prospect. But traits can't ever be ignored. Because there's a requisite level of talent that the overwhelming majority of NFL players need to succeed on Sundays, college production notwithstanding.
Jeanty is listed at 5-foot-9 and 215 pounds. I will not comment on his height, because "too short" makes absolutely zero sense when describing a running back. And Jeanty being over 210 pounds at that height gives him a compact, bowling ball frame. He has a naturally low center of gravity, precisely what ball-carriers want.
Now, we won't know for sure how truly athletic, explosive and agile Jeanty is from a quantitative perspective until the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine or the Boise State Pro Day. But he was featured in Bruce Feldman's Freaks List at No. 54. Here's a snippet about his inclusion:
"Jeanty repeatedly has topped 22 mph in games and squatted more than 605 pounds before BSU strength coaches wouldn't allow him to go any heavier. He power cleaned 340 pounds. The strength coaches calculated that he has a strength-to-bodyweight ratio of 6.23."
Not sure how impressive a 6.23 strength-to-bodyweight ratio is? I wasn't either. But this Freaks List quote from Boise State's director of sports performance Benjamin Hilgart is telling, "Ashton Jeanty is pound-for-pound the strongest player I've ever coached in terms of his strength-to-bodyweight ratio." Feldman noted Hilgart has been in the business for more than 20 years.
The Film
There's an important distinction with Jeanty's game that's evident on film -- while he's indisputably powerful, he doesn't routinely seek contact and rarely does he lower his head in battering ram style to accumulate extra yardage. Neither of those tendencies are good when projecting long-term for the position with the shortest shelf life in the NFL.
Jeanty's power manifests against arm-tackle attempts and is best described as contact balance. Elite-level contact balance. Watch these runs for ample demonstrations of how effortlessly Jeanty bounces off tacklers behind the line, at the second level and even down the field.
His equilibrium is incredibly difficult to shake.
While most of the other running backs I compared Jeanty to in the above table were probably a tick more laterally elusive than Jeanty, he plays with better contact balance than any of them.
It's almost jarring to watch, because hits that bring essentially every other runner I've ever scouted to the turf don't faze Jeanty, and often he either doesn't lose steam or it's like he was completely unaware there was a defender trying to take him to the turf.
Ah yes, speed -- another reasonably important albeit noncritical trait for an NFL running back. If anything, lacking speed serves as clear ceiling on when a back is selected in the draft and, naturally, his big-play upside as a professional.
Below are two plays that illustrate Jeanty's speed. Note the second play, against Oregon. He seems plenty fast.
Do I think long speed will be a trademark of Jeanty's game in the NFL? No, not necessarily. Jeanty may not have long enough strides to be a true burner. But he does not look like a runner with capped potential because clubs won't view him as someone with home-run hitting capabilities.
As for a continuation of the comparison, Hall and Barkley had the fastest 40-yard dash times of the group at 4.38 and 4.40 seconds, respectively. Robinson ran 4.46. McCaffrey ran 4.48. Mixon ran 4.50 at the Oklahoma Pro Day in 2017. That equates to an average of 4.44. Jeanty is probably not that fast, but you never know. As long as he's around 4.50, speed won't be deemed a negative on his draft profile.
And based on what Jeanty has shown with vision, cutting skill, incredibly effortless contact balance and leg churn through multiple tacklers, there's seemingly only positives on that draft profile right now.
Jeanty looks like the next elite running back prospect bound to be a first-round pick in the NFL Draft.
Ashton Jeanty NFL Draft prospect profile
- Age as of Week 1: 21 years old
- Height: 5-foot-9
- Weight: 215 pounds
- Hometown: Jacksonville, Florida
- Interesting fact: Played his high school freshman season in Italy at Naples Middle/High School, a school for children of active military members (father was a U.S. Navy chief petty officer)
CBS prospect ranking
Position: No. 1 RB | Overall: No. 14
Consensus big board ranking (via NFL Mock Draft Database): No. 10 (RB1)
To check out all of CBSSports.com's most recent mock drafts, click here.
NFL comparison: Shorter Marshawn Lynch
While he was never a true home-run threat in the NFL, at Cal, Lynch busted long runs with good regularity, just like we've seen Jeanty do at Boise State. And of course, Lynch was always destructive upon contact with incredible balance after being hit and supremely strong legs to accumulate extra yardage with defenders hanging on him. Those are the same vibes I get with Jeanty, and like Lynch, Jeanty routinely finds holes in traffic between the tackles and can excel in a zone or power scheme.
NFL landing spots
- Cowboys: A team with a clear top running back need, and an owner who's had a thing for premier running backs in his past.
- Raiders: After losing Josh Jacobs, the Raiders didn't replace him with a top-tier running back in the draft or free agency.
- Broncos: If Javonte Williams isn't in the long-term plans, the Broncos could be looking to provide Bo Nix a special running back talent.
Scouting report
Ashton Jeanty is a stocky but fast RB prospect with the best contact balance I've ever scouted. He's essentially impossible to take down on first contact. He can play in a zone or power scheme because he can be a smooth North-South runner or make defenders miss with lateral jukes in the hole. He's very elusive with light feet. His speed is great but not spectacular, and it won't be surprising to see him hit some long runs in the NFL. Jeanty's vision is an asset, too, often running between the tackles and finding tiny creases to squeeze through. He doesn't provide plus ability as a receiver and had some drops in his final season, but of course he can be a weapon in the screen game, though. Altogether, this is one of the finest RB prospects we've seen over the past decade.
Accolades
- 2023-24: Two-time Mountain West player of the Year
- 2024: Most rushing attempts (312), rushing yards (2,288) and rushing touchdowns (28) in FBS
- 2024: Fifth-most single season rushing yards in FBS history (2,288)
- 2024: Most yards after contact (1,695) and missed tackles forced (130) in College Football Playoff-era records (since 2014). His 1,695 yards after contact were more than the total rushing yards of any other FBS player
Strengths
- Unfathomable contact balance
- Plus speed to accelerate past defenders downfield
- Awesome between-the-tackles vision
Weaknesses
- Shorter/smaller than most power RBs
- Not a plus receiver
- Played lesser-ish competition
College stats
Rushing stats
| G | ATT | YDS | YDS/ATT | TD | YDS/G | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2024 | 12 | 312 | 2,288 | 7.3 | 28 | 190.7 |
| 2023 | 12 | 220 | 1,347 | 6.1 | 14 | 112.3 |
| 2022 | 14 | 156 | 821 | 5.3 | 7 | 58.6 |
Receiving stats
| G | REC | YDS | YDS/REC | TD | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2024 | 12 | 18 | 102 | 11.1 | 1 |
2023 | 12 | 43 | 569 | 15.2 | 5 |
2022 | 14 | 14 | 155 | 5.7 | 0 |
247Sports profile
High school: Lone Star (Frisco, Texas)
Class: 2022
Composite rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (90)
- RB: 29 | Texas: 45
High school accolades: Played RB, WR, DE, OLB and S; 2020 Texas District 5-5A D-I first-team at WR; 2019 Texas District 5-5A D-I Defensive Newcomer of the Year
Check out Ashton Jeanty's full 247Sports profile, here. For his MaxPreps profile, click here.