Which FBS Running Back Will Do the Best Impression of Ashton Jeanty in 2025? ...Middle East

It feels nearly impossible for someone to match the exploits of former Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty. But the FBS has some players who will give it a run this season – literally – while trying to shift the national picture in a way that’s not anticipated.

Who will be the next Ashton Jeanty in the 2025 college football season?

The short answer is easy: Nobody will.

Jeanty was arguably the best college running back since Barry Sanders, and it will take a few years before anyone matches his achievements at Boise State last season.

The Heisman Trophy runner-up and unanimous FBS All-American had 2,601 rushing yards, taking aim on, but falling just shy of breaking Sanders’ single-season rushing record of 2,628 yards in 1988, and created an unsolvable matchup nightmare while powering Boise State to the College Football Playoff.

The longer answer is more fun, though: While there won’t be a season this fall quite like Jeanty’s 2024 campaign, some running back is bound to succeed him in at least one way – shifting the championship race (playoff or even just conference) by outrunning his surroundings and single handedly elevating his offense to a new tier.

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Jeanty didn’t just post enormous yardage totals last year, he defied gravity, dominating Opta Analyst’s leaderboards in tracking stats like yards after contact and yards per carry with a run disruption. Defenses loaded the box against him and were helpless anyway.

The No. 6 overall pick by the Las Vegas Raiders in the 2025 NFL Draft was also a rarity in that he still played for Boise State in 2024. At some point in the course of racking up nearly 2,200 yards in the prior two seasons with the Broncos, the math said Jeanty would’ve transferred somewhere else.

This year, a number of the Group of Five conferences’ most promising running backs did just that. A few of them factor into our hunt for the 2025 version of Jeanty, although one will play on the same blue turf Jeanty called home.

Let’s meet some candidates.

Fluff Bothwell, Mississippi State (via South Alabama)

Bothwell was a smash hit as a true freshman at South Alabama, which basically meant the Jaguars would have difficulty hanging on to him for more than a year.

Jeanty led FBS running backs (minimum 70 carries) with an average 3.6 yards after contact, but Bothwell was next at 3.5. The difference between Fluff and No. 3 on that list (Texas State’s Lincoln Pare at just over 3.1) was roughly the same as the difference between Pare and No. 20 on the list.

Bothwell is built like a slightly rounder Jeanty at a listed 5-foot-10, 230 pounds. (Jeanty played at an official 5-9 and 215 pounds last season.) He’s a great get for Mississippi State and should be a shot in the arm for a lousy offense.

The question is about durability and workload. As Bothwell rushed for 834 yards last season, his highest carry totals were 17, 14, 12, and 10, and those weren’t against the teeth of SEC defenses.

DeSean Bishop, Tennessee

Bishop looks like he’ll be the nominal starter in a Tennessee backfield that might use several players to replace fourth-round NFL pick Dylan Sampson. Although Simpson was the statistical strength of the Vols offense last year, he did not have great underlying numbers and owed a big chunk of his success to the light box counts he faced as defenses responded to coach Josh Heupuel’s ultra-spread-out attack.

While carrying the ball 74 times for 455 yards a redshirt freshman, Bishop averaged a tick under 4.0 yards per carry on run disruptions – the classification of carries on which a defender penetrates a gap at the point of attack – way above the national average of 2.6 yards and even Sampson at 3.3. Bishop had nearly identical yards-after-contact figures as Sampson (2.4 for the backup, 2.3 for the starter) and managed to average 4.0 yards before contact compared to Sampson’s 3.6.

That could just be noise or it could be offensive line-driven. But it also could be indicator that Bishop was better at getting downhill quickly as he generated 0.21 missed or broken tackles per touch compared to 0.19 for Sampson.

How Bishop pairs with new quarterback Joey Aguilar will be interesting. Among last year’s top running backs, Sampson was the anti-Jeanty, a runner whose production seemed like the product of his offensive system rather than an elevator of it. Could Bishop create more yards on his own than Sampson did? 

Jeremiyah Love, Notre Dame

Love is not a one-for-one Jeanty comp. He plays behind one of the best offensive lines in college football and does tons of his damage before contact, and he’s a bit taller (6 feet) and less compact than Jeanty.

Jadarian Price, who shared the Fighting Irish backfield last year and will again in 2025, posted similarly strong before-contact numbers (4.6 yards for Love, 4.5 for Price). It’d be hard to argue that Love is the singular reason for his own big numbers: 1,125 yards and 17 touchdowns in 16 games against a mostly brutal schedule.

He’s really good, though. Love averaged 4.9 yards per run disruption – No. 1 among FBS players with 70+ carries (Jeanty was fourth). You can’t credit that to Notre Dame’s line.

With Notre Dame, the 2024 CFP runner-up, nursing an uncertain quarterback situation entering the new season, Love should be even more critical this fall.

Makhi Hughes, Oregon (via Tulane)

At Tulane last year, Hughes ranked seventh nationally (70+ carries) in yards after contact (2.9) and paired it with a slippery disposition as a route runner. His 15 “burns” as a pass catcher were a big number for a player who also had to retain the energy to carry the ball 265 times, more than all but seven running backs (he finished with 1,401 yards and 15 TDs on the ground).

After his younger half-brother Na’eem Offord signed with Oregon in the 2025 high school class, Hughes decided to join him in Eugene. He follows Burky Irving and Jordan James as the latest talented runner under coach Dan Lanning.

Dylan Edwards, Kansas State

Edwards was a success story at K-State last year after spending his true freshman season never quite fitting in with Deion Sanders’ Colorado squad. His 7.4 yards per carry easily led the Big 12, and now the intrigue will be whether Edwards keeps it up as he slides into a bigger role.

He carried just 74 times while gaining 546 yards last season, serving as a change-of-pace option opposite starter DJ Giddens, who’s now an Indianapolis Colt.

Edwards is small (5-9, 167), so he doesn’t pack anywhere near the punch that Jeanty did in college. His yards-after-contact average was 2.1 yards, below average in the Big 12.

Let’s keep an eye peeled here.

Bryson Washington, Baylor 

Washington is one of my favorite breakout candidates, although he arguably broke out already by averaging 5.9 yards per carry to rank fourth in the Big 12 last year (Edwards was the only runner in the conference who outpaced him by more than a yard per carry).

Washington posted well above-average rates of yards after contact (2.6), yards per run disruption (3.0) and burn rate as a receiving target (73.1%). He finished with 1,028 yards on 175 carries, adding in 22 receptions.

Baylor’s offense just felt unstoppable once Washington got comfortable in the backfield in the middle of the season. His breakthrough game was in Week 8 against Texas Tech, when he carried 10 times for 116 yards and two touchdowns. He had between 17 and 28 carries in each of the next five games, averaging 140.4 yards over that regular season-ending stretch.

From the Tech game through Thanksgiving weekend, Washington’s rise helped Baylor average 7.2 yards per play to lead the power conferences.

D.J. McKinney, New Mexico (via Sam Houston)

Almost nobody in the upper reaches of last year’s yards-after-contact or run disruption leaderboards will suit up for a Group of Five team this year. McKinney won’t play for his original G5 team, but he’s moved from Sam Houston to UNM and looks like one of the key early building blocks for new coach Jason Eck.

McKinney took 97 carries for the Bearkats last year and averaged an unremarkable 5.0 yards while finishing with 481 yards overall, but his 3.9 yards per run disruption make him a compelling proposition for a Lobos program that, to put it mildly, is not winning a lot of NIL battles against Power Four programs.

McKinney stands 5-8, 176. Someone has to replace Jeanty as the most-fun short running back in the G5, so why not McKinney? (To answer the question literally, UNM has a crowded running back room and a whole new coaching staff, so he’ll have to earn snaps.)

Sire Gaines, Boise State

While we’re hunting for another Jeanty, we should finish with the running back whose injury last season led to Jeanty taking an even-higher-than-expected share of Boise State’s carries.

In the season opener against Georgia Southern – a game that most will remember for Jeanty kick-starting his banner campaign – Gaines arrived fresh out of high school to carry 12 times for 110 yards and a touchdown and catch three passes for 44 yards and another score.

Gaines was the Mountain West’s freshman of the week after the opener, but he only played in two more games before suffering a lower-body injury that the Boise staff did not talk much about publicly.

The Broncos hope the next Ashton Jeanty will simply be Jeanty’s old backup.

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Which FBS Running Back Will Do the Best Impression of Ashton Jeanty in 2025? Opta Analyst.

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