This week’s recap piece contains everything you could ever want notes on nearly 50 players across the college running back landscape. Whet your whistle:

My introduction to data-based and fantasy-centric player evaluations came via Matt Kelley, Nate Liss, and the Sonic Truth podcast back in the good old days of the late 2010s. My philosophical approach to those evaluations has expanded beyond that lens in the intervening years, but a particular one of Kelley’s axioms has stuck with me during that time (as well as permeated the lexicon of the industry in general): in response to being perceived as a “flip-flopper” who frequently changed his stances on individual players, Kelley would push back against that implicit insistence toward take-lock by declaring, “I don’t hate players, I hate ADPs.”

Perhaps the best example of that truth’s application to my own analysis has been in my shifting view of Chuba Hubbard as a long-term fantasy asset. Back in the summer of 2020, when Hubbard was coming off a 2000-yard rushing season that saw him finish eighth in Heisman Trophy voting and propelled him to a top-five average draft position as the RB2 in most devy rankings, I called him one of the “worst value running backs” in the format due to his status as a 6-foot-1 and 207-pound “tweener” who looked like “the next Tevin Coleman.” Far from delivering on his sky-high value, Hubbard was selected in the fourth round and as the RB8 in the 2021 draft after experiencing a down final year at Oklahoma State, and then ran very inefficiently in Christian McCaffrey’s absence as Carolina’s lead back during his rookie season in the NFL. Now, though, after a much improved sophomore season and in the midst of a third year in which he’s smashing the per-carry output of the guy who was signed to be the Panthers’ workhorse in Miles Sanders, Hubbard has been ranked inside my top-40 dynasty running backs (and ahead of Sanders) since week four, because -- as Kelley said -- I don’t hate players, I hate ADPs.

I wasn’t interested in investing in the next Tevin Coleman at prices that would preclude me from taking shots on the more complete profiles of guys like Najee Harris, Travis Etienne, and Breece Hall that were available at the top of the running back pool back in 2020, but if Hubbard had been valued well outside the top-ten at his position, he would have been a screaming buy in devy land. A similar opportunity to that hypothetical is presented to us now by the disconnect between the talent profile and valuation of a current Oklahoma State runner.

Ollie Gordon is a true sophomore who stands 6’1, weighs 211 pounds, and, I would assert, is currently ahead of schedule as an NFL prospect when compared to Hubbard’s collegiate career arc. He’s coming off one of the best performances of any running back in college football this season, with 284 yards from scrimmage against Kansas that included at least 100 yards and a touchdown both on the ground and through the air:

That statline marks Gordon’s third straight game with at least 100 rushing yards against Power Five opponents, and his fourth straight with at least 5.8 yards per carry against major conference competition. After totaling just 109 yards on the ground through the first three weeks of Oklahoma State’s schedule, he now ranks 33rd in the country in rushing and is smashing the efficiency of the collective other Cowboy runners to a greater degree than almost all the best Oklahoma State backs of the Mike Gundy era, a feat that is particularly impressive given a) the legitimate professional careers that most of those guys have gone on to have, and b) the fact that Gordon is only in his second year out of high school:

This is all following a true freshman season in which Gordon posted a 143.6% Box-Adjusted Efficiency Rating as OSU’s second option in the backfield, so he’s well on his way to a rock-solid career-end resume as a high-end rusher in a Power Five conference. He’s also on pace to catch nearly 35 passes this season (though he’s almost strictly a swing pass specialist at this point in his receiving development) and -- as historical weight gain patterns indicate -- should be close to 220 pounds during his eventual pre-draft cycle. We might be looking at a workhorse-sized back with three-down functionality and a legitimate track record of efficient running, which could make Gordon a more complete prospect than perhaps any runner to come out of Oklahoma State in the last fifteen years. He’s not incredibly fleet of foot, but It’s hard to hate that profile at the RB59 prices reflected in campus2canton.com’s devy ADP.

We might be looking at similar things with Arizona’s Jonah Coleman, another true sophomore who is both running efficiently and catching a high volume of passes at an already-stout 5’9 and 225 pounds. He entered my radar with a dominant performance against USC last week, and then proved it wasn’t a fluke with 168 scrimmage yards in a 44-6 smackdown of Washington State on Saturday, including three rushing touchdowns, a 6.4-yard per-carry average, and four receptions for 98 yards. He’s currently pacing to catch 34 passes this season, and while graduate student DJ Williams and sophomore Rayshon Luke continue to be a part of the rotation in the absence of starter and fifth-year man Michael Wiley, it’s clear that Coleman is both the best player and most interesting pro prospect in this backfield.

Another guy who escaped my purview until recently is Illinois freshman Kaden Feagin, a 6’3 and 250-pound (!!!!!!) beast who just went 19-84-1 against Maryland and has been the most effective runner in the Illini backfield so far this season. He was a bit of a flag-plant player for the C2C guys in this summer’s Freshman Guide, where they placed him in the same tier as company favorites from the past like Quinshon Judkins and more highly-touted recruits from the 2023 class like Justice Haynes.

It’s been an up and down season for Omarion Hampton, but this week was decidedly “up”. The 220-pounder put up 197 yards and a touchdown on 24 carries against a Miami defense that Pro Football Focus rates as the nation’s sixth-best against the run (and that was the number-one defense in the country in terms of rushing yards allowed per game entering the contest), and he added 2-20-1 through the air for good measure. He has clearly established himself as the RB1 at North Carolina and is well on his way to a breakout campaign in this sophomore season. He looks like a legit player:

In a matchup with Trey Benson’s Florida State Seminoles, LeQuint Allen was both the most efficient and most productive running back in the game, with 110 yards on 19 carries to go with three catches for another 16 yards. Syracuse hasn’t scored more than 14 points since they played Army back on September 23rd, but Allen has been a bright spot this season. His efficiency numbers are very solid and he currently ranks third in the ACC in rushing, ahead of guys like Benson and Will Shipley.

Sione Vaki is a sophomore (though he graduated high school in 2019 and then served an LDS mission, so he’s much older than your typical second-year player and is technically eligible for the upcoming draft) who is listed at safety and entered last weekend as Utah’s leading tackler, but they played him at running back against Cal and he ran for 158 yards and two touchdowns on 15 attempts (he also played 56 snaps and had four tackles on defense):

I have no idea what to think of this other than it’s badass and might not mean good things for Ja’Quinden Jackson, who has been playing pretty well this season and added 94 yards and three touchdowns of his own on 22 carries in Saturday’s game. It’ll be interesting to see what the backfield looks like when the Utes go to USC this weekend.

Halfway through a season that has so far been full of dominant performances, Ashton Jeanty may have raised the bar again on Saturday. Losing to Colorado State isn’t a good look, but you can hardly blame the second-year runner and the 254 yards from scrimmage and three touchdowns he produced on 36 touches. He simply is the Boise State offense, with a 47.7% Dominator Rating (which ranks first in the country this season as well as tops among all sophomore running backs since 2008) and a ridiculous seven-game statline of 1264 yards and 15 touchdowns from scrimmage, both first in the country.

Another second-year guy from a small school with a recent history of sending quality running backs to the NFL is Makhi Hughes of Tulane (we’re counting 2008’s Matt Forte and 2004’s Mewelde Moore on top of Tyjae Spears, deal with it), who just went 26-130-1 against Memphis to make it two straight games of at least 100 rushing yards.

Ohio State’s Dallan Hayden had his first carries of the season against Purdue this week, totaling 11 attempts for 76 yards and a touchdown. He’s a former four-star recruit who had a BAE Rating above the 100% mark as a true freshman despite sharing a backfield with TreVeyon Henderson, Chip Trayanum (who he ran ahead of in this week’s game), and Miyan Williams. The lesson here is three-fold: Hayden might be good, Henderson continues to struggle to stay on the field, and Trayanum is hard to bet on.

Just hours after I published an article hyping up DJ Giddens as an underrated prospect in the upcoming draft class, he was both out-touched and out-produced in Kansas State’s victory over Texas Tech by Treshaun Ward, a 194-pound fifth-year transfer from Florida State who had only 23 touches to Giddens’ 58 in the previous two weeks. Ward played well -- he had 118 yards on 15 carries -- but it’s not as if Giddens’ 53 yards on 12 attempts represented a notably bad performance, and the fact that 12 of Ward’s 15 carries came after halftime make me think the unexpected distribution may have been injury-related (though this is college football, so we have no news either confirming or refuting that hypothesis). We’ll see how things shake out against TCU on Saturday.

Bucky Irving has begun to pick up some steam among CFB and draft heads (see 1, 2, 3, 4), and I certainly understand why. He put up 161 yards and a touchdown on 28 touches against a top-30 rushing defense (according to PFF) in Washington last weekend, and despite being just 195 pounds, he ranks ninth among qualifying Power Five backs in yards after contact per attempt and fourth (in a tie with MarShawn Lloyd) among the same group in missed tackles forced per attempt. He has excellent balance and runs about as hard as you could expect from an undersized back, and the added element of his receiving versatility makes him a tantalizing prospect as an out-in-space weapon. At risk of sounding like a hater, however (I’m not, I swear), I think it’s worth pointing out that Irving currently has below-baseline numbers in both BAE Rating and Relative Success Rate.

All things considered -- the Iowa defense is one of the best in the country -- Braelon Allen’s 18-87 line against the Hawkeyes was pretty impressive. This angry YAC job on the shovel pass was a highlight:

Ray Davis scored a receiving touchdown in addition to gaining 128 yards on 20 carries against Missouri. His 43.6% Dominator Rating is the second-highest in the country among qualifying runners and ranks fourth among all fifth-year backs since 2008 (behind only Bobby Rainey, Alfred Morris, and Curtis Steele, meaning he’s first among Power Five runners in that category).

Logan Diggs went 18-97-1 versus Auburn, marking four straight games of at least as many rushing yards. He’s top-four in the SEC in both rushing yards and yards per carry among guys with at least 40 attempts on the season, with Ray Davis the only guy ahead of him in both categories.

Five turnovers from the defense were a huge contributing factor, but Audric Estime was probably the Notre Dame offense’s best player in their win against USC on Saturday night, with a 22-95-2 line that served as a much-needed bounceback from a 20-yard outing versus Louisville in the previous week. He’s third in the country in rushing yards (and first among Power Five backs) after a four-game stretch against top-25 opponents and with nothing but unranked teams on the schedule from here on out.

The guy who is fourth on that list is Tahj Brooks, who went 17-98-1 and added two receptions for 22 yards in the loss to Kansas State. He is the epitome of a two-down grinder, with just 11 receptions on the year to go with his high carry totals, 4.7% RSR, and 72.9% BAE Rating. It’s hard to find an efficiency profile more heavily skewed toward low-ceiling-but-dependable output than his.

Carson Steele seems to have come out on top in the great UCLA running back wars of 2023, as he’s now out-touched TJ Harden 53-24 in the last two weeks after enjoying just an 11-touch lead through the team’s first four games. Both of these guys played well against Oregon State, however, as Harden added 9-47-1 to Steele’s 22-110-1. Their efficiency split is indicative of the classic thunder-and-lightning duo, with Steele above the baseline in RSR but below it in BAE Rating and Harden the opposite.

Jaylen Wright put up 136 yards on 19 attempts against Texas A&M. He ranks eighth among qualifying Power Five backs in yards per carry but also faces the third-lightest defensive fronts of any of those players (heavier than those run into by only Dylan Edwards and Michael Allen).

Fifth-year man Jordan Waters ran for 123 yards and a score on 13 carries against Northwestern. He doesn’t have an extensive history of high-end efficiency but he is balling for Duke this year, with a 143.1% BAE Rating and 9.3% RSR to go with a 6.55 raw per-carry average.

Washington’s Dillon Johnson had maybe his best game of the season in the win over Oregon, with 20 attempts for 100 yards and a touchdown. He’s a Mississippi State transfer who -- while he caught 149 passes in his three seasons with the team -- never really rose above the level of a committee back with the Bulldogs, but he ended his career there with above-baseline marks in both BAE Rating and RSR and has maintained solid efficiency while dominating backfield work in an elite Huskies offense so far this season. He doesn’t strike me as a super exciting prospect, but crazier things have happened than a 218-pound guy with three-down chops getting some decent draft capital after playing well on a nationally contending team. Who knows.

Devin Mockobee was a bright spot in Purdue’s ass-kicking at the hands of Ohio State this week, turning 18 carries into 110 yards. He was a high-BAE Rating, low-RSR guy last year but has turned that dynamic a full 180 with low-efficiency, high-consistency output this season.

Leshon Williams took the Wisconsin Badgers out behind the woodshed on Saturday, putting up 174 yards on 25 carries, including this 82-yard house call:

He’s been straight up better than sophomore Kaleb Johnson this season, which is a bit of a surprise given a) the high level at which Johnson played as a freshman, and b) the fact that Williams’ current 6.12-yard per-carry average is nearly double what his career mark was prior to the season opener.

Rutgers’ Kyle Monangai went 24-148-1 against Michigan State on Saturday. He’s experiencing a low-key fourth-year breakout right now, with a 28.8% Dominator Rating to go with positive marks in BAE Rating, RSR, and a ton of missed tackles at 0.38 forced per attempt.

Against all odds, Daijun Edwards continues to operate as Georgia’s workhorse, as his 146 yards and a touchdown on 20 attempts against Vanderbilt means he now has a 264-yard, three-touchdown, and 44-carry lead over Kendall Milton as the most productive runner in the Bulldog backfield.

Because I woke up feeling under the weather on this fine Tuesday morning, this week’s recap of Group of Five performances is going to be a speed round of all the notable statlines in ascending order of their output of PPR fantasy points.

Terion Stewart had 123 rushing yards for 12.3 points against Buffalo.

Kimani Vidal duplicated Stewart’s line but added a reception for a cool 13.3 points against Army.

Jalen Buckley caught four passes on his way to totaling 108 yards for 14.8 fantasy points against Miami of Ohio.

Nay’Quan Wright is our first touchdown scorer, as he punched one in while also catching a pass and gaining 106 yards to drop a whopping 17.6 points on South Florida.

Robert Henry and Kevorian Barnes dominated against UTSA, as the former turned 108 yards, two catches, and a touchdown into 18.8 points while the latter added two scores to 76 yards from scrimmage on his way to a 19.6-point outing.

Peny Boone earns his weekly appearance in this article with a 156-yard, one-reception, one-touchdown performance against Ball State that marks our first 20+ point game at 22.6.

Georgia State’s Marcus Carroll totaled 23.2 points via his 162 yards on top of one catch and a score.

Quali Conley is the first of two San Jose State runners to appear in this section, as he went for 184 yards and a score against New Mexico to total (with a reception added in there for good measure) 25.4 points.

Quinton Cooley scored twice and gained 163 yards from scrimmage against Jacksonville State, giving him 28.3 fantasy points on the day.

Donavyn Lester scored thrice and gained 101 yards of his own against Nevada, and even added a reception to bring his point total to 29.1.

Jermaine Brown caught a whopping six passes against UTSA as part of a performance that also saw him score a touchdown and churn out 173 scrimmage yards, giving him 29.3 points.

Our first 30-burger comes courtesy of Malik Sherrod, who scored three times, caught three passes, and gained 166 yards against Utah State. His fantasy score was 37.6.

Rasheen Ali occupies the penultimate spot on this list with a 39.4-point fantasy outing that he produced via 174 yards, four receptions, and three touchdowns against Georgia State.

Finally, the top score among this group belongs to our second San Jose State runner in Kairee Robinson, who slapped New Mexico around to the tune of 189 yards, two catches, four touchdowns, and a resulting 44.9 PPR points.