noahmoreparties

Sample	YPC	BAE Rating	RSR	CR+	BCR	MTF per Att.
2023	7.78	112.4%	-9.2%	0.9%	40.0%	0.41
Career	5.72	124.0%	-4.0%	5.5%	40.4%	0.32

Prior to this season, the only sample we had of Lloyd as a healthy contributor at the collegiate level were the 111 carries he had with South Carolina in 2022. He was one of the more highly-touted running backs in the 2020 recruiting class, but he tore his ACL in preseason camp of that season and was pretty ineffective in his first year on the field, as he averaged just 3.56 yards per carry as a redshirt sophomore in 2021. He was clearly much healthier last year, posting marks of 163.9% and 11.8% in Box-Adjusted Efficiency Rating and Relative Success Rate, respectively, leading to my enthusiasm for him in a high-octane USC offense this season.

The numbers now make clear that Lloyd is producing big plays but running relatively inconsistently on a per-carry basis overall, an understanding that I brought to his film. Just a couple games into my charting process (when I had studied Lloyd’s combined 17-for-88 performances against San Jose State and Notre Dame), I was very unimpressed with Lloyd and those inconsistencies.

Especially frustrating in those games was the fact that Lloyd wasn’t struggling in any one particular area, but running sloppily and making mistakes nearly across the board. Let’s look at some examples:

On this first play, Lloyd’s job is to simply follow his pullers to the opposite side of the formation, but he unnecessarily feints toward the line of scrimmage right at the moment of the handoff, a maneuver that accomplishes nothing productive and slows his commitment to the designed gap.

Lloyd has more freedom to pick and choose his spots on this zone run, but I think he’s trying to do too much. It wasn’t necessarily a bad read to go bounce given that there isn’t a ton of running room inside, but it’s also not as if the edge was wide open. Considering his options (and the fact that this is a first-and-goal play), this play strikes me as an appropriate place to get what’s there and move on, an approach that would result in Lloyd’s maintaining an inside track and squeezing whatever he can out of a crease on either side of #70. Instead, he makes a dramatic cut to chase a bounce opportunity that doesn’t actually offer more than what he could have pushed for on the interior, slips in the process of that move, and gets swallowed up near the line of scrimmage.

I also think Lloyd probably should have taken this zone play down that interior crease, but the path he chose was nearly as viable and my problem with his decision-making here isn’t completely related to that distinction. My issue is that, regardless of which gap he was going to commit to, he should have manipulated the defense by pressing in the other direction before cutting into his intended lane. His initial track is already carrying him wide, so he was set up perfectly to press to the outside of San Jose State’s #42 -- with the flow of traffic -- and then cut hard off his right foot into the gap vacated by #6. #4 probably makes that play from the backside, but Lloyd’s downhill momentum would enable him to squeeze more out of that interaction than making a wide turn into the next gap over was going to allow for anyway. He makes no effort to create space beyond what’s already been blocked for him, runs into the flow of the defense, and adds a cherry on top by tripping over his own man’s foot.

With only two explosive plays generated across those two games (one of which was this little speed option where Lloyd didn’t have to do anything but accelerate into open space), I started my film study process pretty pessimistic on the viability of Lloyd’s hero-ball tendencies, as they simply were not resulting in enough home runs to justify their high rate of strikeouts. With more film came more evidence of the fourth-year back’s explosive traits, however, as well as more examples of those traits producing the kind of big gains that would legitimize a bounce-happy, freestyling approach at the line of scrimmage. Here’s a short compilation of plays on which Lloyd’s burst, elusiveness, and overall athleticism either bailed him out of suboptimal choices or compounded the beneficial effects of sound decision-making processes:

I don’t know what Lloyd is going to test like at the Combine, but he shows dynamic athletic ability on the field. He’s frequently able to overrun angles in beating linebackers to the edge (a notable example of which can be seen at the 1:20 mark of the above video, as Lloyd slows pursuit by juking toward the line of scrimmage and then blows by anyone who would’ve been able to make a play on a 0-to-60 foot race to the corner) or splitting defensive backs in the open field, and he’s one of the few most elusive runners I’ve studied so far. His bag is very deep, with a repertoire of crossovers, dead legs, spins, and jump cuts that -- on a sample of 82 carries and 33 evasive maneuvers -- resulted in the successful eluding of a defender on 84.8% of such attempts, a rate that trails only TreVeyon Henderson’s 85.7% among backs that I’ve studied so far. He doesn’t overuse those moves, either, as his 33.3% Avoidance Rate is right at the population median for the players I’ve charted. He runs with a fairly average level of power, as well, but his quickness, burst, and impeccable timing combine to make him tough to get a solid hit on, whether he’s actively trying to make a defender miss or simply running to daylight. Lloyd’s mark in Contact Solidity is 0.35, trailing only Carson Steele’s 0.34 as the lowest studied backs.

I’m obviously impressed by Lloyd’s physical talent as a ball-carrier, but after his rocky start in my charting process, he displayed enough positive moments as a behind-the-line-of-scrimmage decision-maker to kind of smooth out the detrimental effects of his flighty and sometimes sloppy tendencies. His patience and decisiveness show up well on all types of plays, and while I think his carelessness in the backfield is a significant barrier to his success as a zone runner, he’s much more effective within the structure of gap plays that ask him to hit a designed hole. There, he displays what my charting indicates is the best patience of any back I’ve watched, as well as a knack for manipulating defenders in and out of creases as a means of creating space (in the precise way that he didn’t in the third clip I showed in this article).

Overall, Lloyd grades out very similarly for me as Kendre Miller did. Assuming Lloyd declares for this year’s draft, the two of them will have ended their college careers with very similar rushing efficiency profiles (lots of broken tackles, lots of explosive plays, little down-to-down consistency), and they both are a) near the bottom of the players I’ve studied in terms of zone decision-making, and b) close to the population average in terms of gap decision-making. The biggest differences between the two are a much higher degree of mistake-proneness from Miller on gap concepts and complete stylistic disparity in terms of how they each win in encounters with defenders. Miller displayed mediocre elusiveness but top-tier through-contact ability in my charting, while Lloyd shows the opposite.

Ultimately, I feel pretty good about my preseason stance that Lloyd was one of the most underrated running backs in the 2024 class after having watched his tape. It tracks seamlessly with his rushing efficiency profile for better and worse, reinforcing that I think he has the potential to be a D’Andre Swift-type player at the next level. Swift entered the league at just over 5’8 and 212 pounds, and Lloyd is currently listed at 5’9 and 210. Lloyd’s efficiency profile has the same similarities to Swift’s as it does to Miller’s, and while Swift left Georgia with a more robust receiving resume than Lloyd is going to end his college career with, Lloyd’s dynamic usage as a pass-catcher during his healthy season at South Carolina hints at more versatility than he’s been asked to show at USC (though he’s had his moments with the Trojans as well). He’ll probably be responsible for a lot of the same types of frustrating moments that Swift has produced on the ground in his NFL career, but I don’t see why his athletic talent and out-in-space ability couldn’t justify his presence on a professional field in the same way that they often have for Swift.