In working on a new and nearly-done process for formulating my devy running back rankings (that will be heavily derivative of my new process for putting together dynasty rankings) during the last couple weeks, I’ve run into a familiar problem: I don’t know shit about the freshman class. I certainly know more about those players than the average football fan does, but because I a) don’t personally scout high school recruits, and b) don’t have a way to apply the on-field metrics that I use to evaluate NFL and college backs to the high school game, my knowledge of guys who have not yet completed a season of college ball is rather lacking when compared to my knowledge of those who have. I want my devy rankings to join my dynasty rankings as the best on the planet in their particular niche, so such a blind spot is an issue.

I will likely remedy point A from above this coming offseason, but this article is concerned specifically with the 2026 running back class. My understanding of the players in that group has largely been informed by campus2canton.com’s 2023 Freshman and Supplemental Draft Guide, a fantastic resource that includes rankings, tiers, model scores, on-field speed data, athletic comps, and full written evaluations on 50 running backs in this year’s freshman class (and the same for a similarly large number of quarterbacks, wide receivers, and tight ends), but we’re now on the downhill slope of the season and therefore have on-field data for these guys as college players, so it’s the perfect time to get myself up to speed and fill in the gaps of my loosely held preseason opinions. Given all that, this article will serve as a crash course for wrapping your (my) brain around this group of players.

Let’s start with CJ Baxter, who is poised to offer his own crash course with Jonathon Brooks now out for the year with a torn ACL. Baxter is already listed at a Matt Forte-like 6’1 and 218 pounds and, inspiring comps to players like Joe Mixon, Darren McFadden, and Zach Charbonnet, was a five-star recruit and the number-one back in this class according to both 247Sports and C2C. So far this season, he’s been a solid contributor.

Because a) such things help me ground my thoughts in something workable, and b) the process I’m using for my dynasty rankings is based on a similar mechanism, I’ve decided to rate the to-date in-season performance of each of these backs on a numerical scale:

These classifications don’t reflect exactly what they appear to, so let me elaborate before we move on. The “historically good” category is fairly self-explanatory given its inherent subjectivity (I suppose I mean something like “generational”), but the “all-american”, “all-conference”, and “all-freshman” categories should not be construed to indicate that a player will or even should be named to an actual All-America, All-Conference, or All-Freshman squad in real life and by using traditional selection criteria. Instead, they indicate that if I were putting together an All-America, All-Conference, or All-Freshman squad based on my own performance evaluations and production criteria, the players I put in those categories would be the ones I’d deem worthy of being named to the corresponding all-whatever teams. After that, the classifications return to the land of obvious subjectivity.

I placed Baxter in the “solid contributor” category. His Dominator Rating is a flat 10.0%, which is pretty good in the context of Texas’ high-quality team, offense, and running back depth chart, but Baxter has averaged fewer yards per carry than both Jaydon Blue and Jonathon Brooks while also succeeding on a lower percentage of his carries than every other back on the roster so far. Brooks is playing as well as any runner in college football right now and Blue was a highly-touted player in last year’s recruiting class, so it’s not as if being less efficient than them is necessarily a signal that Baxter is worse than we thought, but his raw marks in yards per carry and Success Rate rank 96th and 119th, respectively, out of 135 Power Five backs with at least 50 attempts. His yards after contact and missed tackles forced numbers are also mediocre. The opportunity created by the Brooks injury could enable Baxter to vault into “all-freshman” territory by the time the season ends, but he’s been closer to decent than incredible so far.

I classified Justice Haynes as a solid contributor for nearly opposite reasons. Haynes entered the season as a consensus top-two runner in the 2023 freshman class, and he’s been good but simply hasn’t touched the ball that often. His longest run of the season is just 16 yards, but that means his quality efficiency marks -- both raw and box count-adjusted -- are not inflated by a few outlier gains on his 16 attempts. Still, the relatively small sample means we can’t get ahead of ourselves. He’s been good, but we don’t have confirmation of anything yet.

Before we talk about the guys who’ve offered something more than solid contributions, here’s a complete, alphabetical list of the players that I classified as solid contributors:

And -- with the caveat that injury news is difficult to hunt down for college players and some of the following classifications might therefore be slightly off -- here are the guys who I gave lower scores, listed alphabetically and alongside where 247Sports had them ranked in the recruiting class:

Now let’s talk about the guys who've been legitimately impressive so far in 2023, starting with BYU’s LJ Martin and his “all-freshman” classification. Martin is a 205-pounder who entered the season without much buzz, but he’s been the Cougars’ best running back. He’s received double-digit attempts in six of his eight games, has a total of 104 on the year, and has a Dominator Rating above the 20% threshold. Martin has also been impressive on a per-touch basis, with a 123.2% Box-Adjusted Efficiency Rating to go with an average of 0.26 missed tackles forced per attempt, both above the 66th percentile among historical draftees. He’s closing in on 500 rushing yards and has probably been productive enough to make a real life conference all-freshman team (if such a thing existed for the Big 12).

Three-star Parker Jenkins was similarly unheralded this preseason, and he’s probably been slightly better than Martin through mid-November. He’s averaging nearly five yards on 87 carries, is forcing 0.30 missed tackles per attempt, has an above-average BAE Rating to go with a Relative Success Rate in the 85th percentile, and has shown legit flashes on the field:

Colorado’s Dylan Edwards has also been good. His rushing efficiency numbers have been slightly subpar across the board, but he’s a 170-pound guy who will need to contribute on third downs in order to carve out a role in the league, so his 32 receptions and 260 receiving yards are a pretty big deal. Those numbers join his 10.1% Target Share as top-20 marks among nationwide runners, regardless of classification.

Kaden Feagin became a regular in my weekly CFB recap articles during the stretch in which Illini starting back Reggie Love was out with an injury, and he wasn’t just absorbing volume. The 250-pounder put together three straight games of 80+ rushing yards and currently has above-baseline marks in both BAE Rating and RSR. He has impressive burst for a man his size and has even contributed well in the passing game.

The last of our “all-freshman” performers is Roderick Robinson, a 240-pound beast who the C2C guys had ranked as their RB3 in this class. He doesn’t have the kind of volume numbers that would put him in consideration for the real life SEC All-Freshman team, but much of that is thanks to a high ankle sprain that caused him to miss six games in the middle of the season. Before the injury, though, Robinson had posted a 15-89-2 line, and in his first game back after it, he turned two attempts into 37 yards against an SEC opponent in Ole Miss. Despite the fact that Daijun Edwards and Kendall Milton have been effective as Georgia’s top two backs this season, Robinson has done enough on his carries to earn a 119.3% BAE Rating and 3.9% RSR.

Our final freshman is also the only one to earn an “all-conference” rating. Darius Taylor has battled injuries in 2023, but the four-star back has been dominant when on the field. During a three-game stretch (two of them coming against Power Five opponents) as Minnesota’s RB1 back in September, Taylor ran for 529 yards and four touchdowns on 86 attempts and was named the Big Ten’s Freshman of the Week following each matchup. Courtesy of Brandon Lejeune, here are highlights from Taylor’s 138-yard effort against North Carolina:

Taylor missed two straight games following that hot start, returned to run for 59 yards against Iowa’s third-ranked rushing defense (according to Pro Football Focus) on October 21st, suffered another injury in that game, and we haven’t seen him since. However, despite quality play from the other Gopher backs in his absence -- each of Jordan Nubin, Sean Tyler, and Zach Evans have notched games of 85+ rushing yards this season (Nubin put up 204 on Michigan State) -- Taylor remains the team’s leading rusher, is averaging 1.55 yards per carry greater than those guys are collectively, and has a per-game Dominator Rating of 42.9%, the highest mark in the country among all backs who’ve played even four games. I’m not saying he’s the best player in this class, but he’s definitely been the most impressive through its first eleven weeks.