Welcome to a very special edition of whatever this article has become: we now have box count-adjusted and team-relative rushing efficiency numbers for every running back in college football. Top-20 leaderboards for both Power Five and Group of Five players in Box-Adjusted Efficiency Rating are waiting for subscribers behind the paywall (and maybe I’ll even throw in a Relative Success Rate leaderboard), but first and as always, here are my thoughts on every performance that caught my eye across the running back landscape in week three:

Nick Singleton was a 5-star recruit who is currently valued as the devy RB1. I have no qualms with either of those things, but I do take issue with the fact that Singleton’s explosive brilliance overshadows a player in Allen who was himself a highly-touted high school prospect and has since proven to be nothing but as advertised as both a producer and per-touch performer right next to Singleton in the Penn State backfield. Singleton rode a ridiculous Breakaway Conversion Rate to tremendous team-relative efficiency last season, but it was Allen who faced substantially more defensive attention close to the line of scrimmage (his Box Count+ mark of 0.27 landed in the 87th percentile while Singleton’s -0.19 was a 21st-percentile figure) and still managed to produce a 70th-percentile RSR of 4.4% that indicates he was churning out positive outcomes at a rate well above what other Nittany Lion runners -- including Singleton -- created on theirs.

This week, Allen turned 13 carries into 54 yards and a touchdown against Illinois (despite an offensive line performance that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette described as “disastrous”), bringing his season-long output to 42 carries for 208 yards and two touchdowns with a BAE Rating of 126.3% and an RSR of 12.2%. Singleton also scored against the Iliini but went for just 37 yards on his 11 carries, and his seasonal marks in BAE Rating and RSR currently sit at 102.5% and 8.6%, respectively. I don’t mean to suggest that Singleton is overrated or that Allen is better than him, neither of which I believe at this point in time, but simply that Allen is also damn good. Singleton’s athletic juice and open-field dynamism are things that the NFL values (as we see to varying degrees with guys like Travis Etienne, Kenneth Walker, and Miles Sanders), but professional teams also care about dependably maximizing what’s blocked at the first level of the defense (as we see with players like Brian Robinson, James Conner, and the current version of Joe Mixon), and what Allen lacks in the former area he complements Singleton with spades of in the latter. He led this team in carries last season and is currently doing so again in 2023, something that doesn’t happen by accident when you’re playing alongside a monster like Singleton.

While Jase McClellan -- the guy who is supposed to be Alabama’s RB1 -- turned 13 carries into a completely respectable 74 yards in a slog of a game against South Florida, Williams was the Tide offense’s best player, ripping off 129 yards and a touchdown on 17 carries after entering the contest with 48 total rushing yards on just 13 attempts.

There isn’t much in Williams’ overall profile that screams “future fantasy-relevant pro”, but we’ve seen guys emerge as upperclassmen at Alabama and go on to NFL success before, so it’s worth monitoring how this backfield shakes out going forward. The same applies in regards to McClellan, with whom we’re quickly approaching put-up-or-shut-up time for his prospects as an interesting player in the upcoming draft class. He was out-touched and out-played by Williams in this one after entering the game averaging fewer than four yards per carry.

The departure of Mahomed Ibrahim following last season left a hole in the Minnesota Golden Gophers’ backfield, presumably to be filled by some combination of two-time 1000-yard rushing Western Michigan transfer Sean Tyler and four-star freshman Darius Taylor. Tyler performed respectably through two games, rushing for a combined 134 yards on 27 carries against Nebraska and Eastern Michigan, but his two fumbles in the latter contest opened the door for his younger running mate, who has not looked back since. Taylor put up 193 yards and a touchdown versus the Eagles and then followed that performance up with a 22-138-1 line on Saturday against a team now ranked as the 17th best in the country in North Carolina, and that while Tyler ran the ball just three times for a total of two yards. The kid is already listed at 210 pounds on a 5’11 frame, is averaging six yards per carry while facing the second-most defenders in the box (7.45) of any back with 10+ rushes in the country, and runs with impressive discipline for a guy just three weeks into his college career:

After a 7-for-20 performance against now-21st-ranked Washington State in week two, Allen went for 94 yards and two touchdowns on just 12 attempts against Georgia Southern. That means he’s averaging 8.10 yards per carry against Group of 5 opponents and just 2.86 against those from the Power 5 conferences (albeit in a one-game sample that also may have contributed to his uncertain availability for the GSU game) on the season. Friday’s game against Purdue marks the first of nine in a row versus Big Ten challengers for Wisconsin, a stretch that will provide us with greater clarity on Allen’s fit in the Badgers’ new Dairy Raid offense and therefore his potential for having the sort of productivity this season that would make day two draft capital a realistic possibility. For what it’s worth (not that I’m personally counting on this particular aspect of his game being a large part of his NFL skillset), he’s self-aware about his struggles to acclimate to expanded receiving game responsibilities this season.

Anyone who’s been a subscriber to this website knows that I’m a big fan of Williams, but things are not looking good for his potential to make the jump to the NFL this spring. He had just five rushing attempts against Western Kentucky this weekend, has seen no more than seven in any game so far this year while running clearly behind TreVeyon Henderson, and has been thoroughly outdone on the ground by both Henderson and Chip Trayanum, whose seasonal BAE Ratings currently sit at 108.3% and 114.6%, respectively, compared to Williams’ measly mark of 71.9% (though he does have the highest RSR among them at 4.1%; Henderson is back to his boom/bust ways, with a current RSR of -7.2%). Williams is in his fourth season of action for the Buckeyes but has a couple years of eligibility left (he redshirted despite playing in four games as a freshman, and everyone who was on a roster during the COVID-affected 2020 season was given an extra year), and it wouldn’t shock me to see him transfer come this offseason if the backfield continues trending in this direction.

Kay’Ron Lynch-Adams put up 26-129-1 on Eastern Michigan, who might be pretty bad against the run (see: Taylor, Darius). Adams is a fifth-year senior who hasn’t posted a BAE Rating above the 100% threshold since he did so on 35 carries as a sophomore at Rutgers (he’s now at UMass), but he did have 101 yards on just 14 carries against Auburn two weeks ago.

Nate Noel has posted a BAE Rating above the 100% threshold in each of his three seasons at Appalachian State, and his 25-193-1 performance against East Carolina means he has now posted at least 100 rushing yards in each of his three games so far this season, one of which came against the same top-20 UNC team that Taylor just lit up.

La’Damian Webb is a sixth-year guy who went from Mississippi State to Jones College (a junior college) to Florida State and now to South Alabama, but he’s stoutly built at 5’7 and 210 pounds, had a 127.0% BAE Rating and a ridiculous 20.6% RSR last season, and is playing well again this year. He’s averaging 8.0 yards per carry and just put up 151 and two touchdowns against Oklahoma State.

Peny Boone is an even more stout (he’s listed at 6’1, 242) Power Five transfer (from Maryland) who went for 123 yards on 13 carries in Toledo’s victory over San Jose State on Saturday.

Memphis’ Blake Watson is a fifth-year player who posted a 151.2% BAE Rating as Old Dominion’s lead back last season, and he gained 237 yards and scored a touchdown on just 16 touches against Navy this weekend.

LJ Martin averaged just 3.3 yards per carry against Arkansas, but (with junior Aidan Robbins dubiously hurt) the true freshman operated as BYU’s clear RB1 with 23 carries for 77 yards and two scores, including this long one:

The Louisiana Tech versus North Texas game was basically the Tyre Shelton versus Ayo Adeyi show. Shelton -- a fifth-year senior -- had 152 yards and a touchdown on 16 carries, while Adeyi -- a 5’7 and 192-pound junior -- went 19-148-2.

Pro Football Focus has Florida State’s offensive line graded out as the 15th-best run-blocking unit in the country so far this season, but I’m still waiting for Trey Benson to explode against a quality opponent. He averaged fewer than four yards per carry against LSU in the opener and pulled the same trick against Boston College on Saturday, turning 12 carries into just 38 yards and a touchdown. He gets Clemson this weekend.

Speaking of Clemson, Will Shipley averaged just 3.75 yards on 12 touches against the Florida Atlantic Owls this week.

Audric Estime has a big matchup against Ohio State on Saturday, and he enters it as the country’s leading rusher after another stellar performance, this time with a 20-176-1 line on Central Michigan. His BAE Rating is at 163.6% right now.

Yawn: Blake Corum had a cool 101 yards and two touchdowns on 12 carries against Bowling Green, and he continues to look as agile as ever:

Notably, Donovan Edwards actually did something in this one, producing 50 yards on nine carries to bring his season-long per-carry average to a scintillating 3.56. Big Ten play starts this week, with Rutgers up first.

Damien Martinez continued his reign of terror on overmatched California schools with 15 carries for 102 yards against San Diego State. He gets Washington State’s fifth-ranked (according to PFF) rush defense on Saturday, just two weeks after they held Braelon Allen to 2.86 yards per carry.

Trevor Etienne ripped then-11th-ranked Tennessee apart to the tune of 172 yards and a touchdown on 23 attempts:

A running back from Georgia finally did something of note, as Daijun Edwards took advantage of injuries to four-star freshman Roderick Robinson (high ankle sprain) and senior Kendall Milton (MCL) to post 118 yards and a touchdown on 20 carries in his season debut against South Carolina. Unfortunately, Edwards is a 201-pound senior who has never posted a BAE Rating over the 101.8% mark or an RSR over the -1.7% mark. Unless Milton is able to get right and turn things around quickly, we may be looking at the rare offseason where no Bulldog runner is interesting from a rookie draft perspective.

Jalen Buckley has become a staple of this series, but this week he appears because his performance against the very stout Iowa defense was perhaps unsurprisingly subdued compared to the explosive statlines he’d posted in the first two games of the season. The dynamic sophomore had just 30 yards on 14 carries against the Hawkeyes fifth-ranked (according to PFF) rushing defense.

Rutgers’ Kyle Monangai put up 16-143-3 against Virginia Tech one week after going 28-165-1 against Temple.

The artist formerly known as Re’Mahn Davis (now Ray) is now averaging over seven yards per carry after putting 72 yards and a score up on Akron, and he also added three receptions for 97 yards and the below ridiculous score to bring his seasonal receiving marks to 9-143-2 in just three games:

Kentucky hasn’t played anybody yet, but I’ve long been a fan of Davis’ and he doesn’t do anything but produce efficiently wherever he plays. I’m excited to see how he looks in SEC play, which begins this weekend with a visit to Vanderbilt, the team with which he posted BAE Ratings and RSRs above the 80th percentile in both 2021 and 2022.

CJ Donaldson had 102 yards and a touchdown on 18 carries in West Virginia’s Backyard Brawl victory over Pitt.

Emani Bailey bounced back from a strangely inefficient game against Nicholls State with 23 carries for 126 yards and a score against Houston.

LeQuint Allen had a big game against Purdue, as he hauled in six passes for 62 yards while churning out 80 and a touchdown on 17 carries.

Stud freshman CJ Baxter missed Texas’ game against Wyoming (though he was back at practice on Monday), which opened the door for Jonathan Brooks to put up 21-164 on the Cowboys.

Here’s the top-20 backs among G5 players with at least 30 carries in Box-Adjusted Efficiency Rating (with some wild numbers at the top given the still-small sample we’re working with early on in the season):

And here’s the top-20 runners in the same category from P5 schools:

And for good measure, below are the top-20 P5 backs in Relative Success Rate: