A steely visage envelops his face as Ashton Jeanty makes the transition from resting to training, as if flipping a switch. Eyes focused, his vision narrows. His head moves imperceptibly despite the often violent movement his lower body is going through, whether high-stepping through warmups or sprinting on a treadmill.
The Boise State tailback—he’s still sporting a blue pullover with the school’s logo—is nothing if not consistent when it comes to putting in work. Jeanty can often be found in a Zen-like state concentrating on that opening just ahead of him on the field and, like a mathematician in a movie rapidly calculating angles and distances, on how he can best locate the optimal path forward with a ball tucked against his ribs.
This approach, one that often winds up with him in the end zone on an actual football field, is something Jeanty has been refining over the course of his still young career in the backfield. It’s also a key factor in explaining why he is entering the NFL draft certain to become more than just a first-round pick at a position that tends to get labeled as “devalued” as soon as it is mentioned.
Jeanty will have none of that talk. He sees himself not only as a difference maker, but also part of a growing wave of players that have made it en vogue again to carry the ball and become the focal point of an offense.
“They’ve been saying it’s a running back renaissance and I believe it’s here,” says Jeanty. “All those guys in the league, it’s great to see them bringing life back into the position. I mean, it’s not just me. Plenty of other guys are doing special things.”
If there’s a leading man for the rushing revival, it’s Eagles star Saquon Barkley. Following his very public swap in NFC East alliances last year after he left the Giants, the now highest-paid player at the position in the league ignited the debate with a 2,005-yard season capped off with a Super Bowl victory.
The likes of Jahmyr Gibbs (of the Lions), Derrick Henry (Ravens) and James Cook (Bills) have fueled the movement as they have put up big numbers. Those three—all of whom were among the 16 backs who rushed for at least 1,000 yards last season (the most since 2010)—have contributed to the altering of the narrative regarding their position, but it remains to be seen if NFL front offices are truly changing their stance toward running backs or if recent chatter is merely a blip in a decade-long trend of decline on the field and, almost as important, within the salary cap.
“We live in a copycat league, and as running backs moved around this past offseason, people found greater value in the position itself,” says one NFC personnel executive. “But beauty is going to be in the eye of the beholder.”
Such thinking is about to be put to the test during this year’s draft, where Jeanty—whom Sports Illustrated projects to go sixth, which would be the highest spot for a running back since Barkley went second overall in 2018—leads one of the deepest classes in recent memory.
Jeanty is atypical off the field as well. He’s an accomplished cook who enjoys singing and dancing so much that he is already planning which songs he will perform when he’s subjected to various NFL rookie rituals. (He often posts dances to his TikTok account, which has 700,000 followers.) Of course, he also likes to relax by playing video games, with Call of Duty his favorite choice. That might not seem like something to wind down to, but it’s in keeping with the attitude the back displays on game day.
“I’m vicious. I’m vicious when I run the ball,” he says. “All those guys [in the NFL], they’re great at making guys miss. I feel I’m a little more physical. That’s just my mentality when I play, to dominate the man across from me.”
Jeanty is not shy in ticking off his individual goals: He’d like to earn Rookie of the Year honors and amass more than 2,000 all-purpose yards. Naturally, the hope is that comes in tandem with team success, as he believes he can be a plug-and-play option for whatever franchise drafts him. “Everything you want in a running back I can do,” he says. “Speed, power, agility and, most importantly for a running back, running the ball and making people miss. In the passing game, I can catch the ball, I can run routes like a receiver. Then, being an extension of the O-line in pass protection and picking up a blitzer, giving the QB time to throw the ball down the field. From an IQ standpoint, understanding our offense and understanding how defenses attack us. Then character—I think that’s the most important, who I am as a person. I strive for excellence each and every single day.
“I’m special not just on the field, but off the field. I’m one of a kind.”
“I’m special not just on the field, but off the field. I’m one of a kind.”Ashton Jeanty
One of a kind is not a phrase many coaches used to describe Jeanty early in his football career. His father was a commanding officer in the Navy, which led to a winding path to the cusp of NFL stardom. He grew up in Jacksonville, before making stops in Virginia and, most notably, a base just outside of Naples, Italy.
It was there, in a country home to a much different brand of football, that the tailback first started to make a name for himself. Between an 18-hour bus ride to play a game in Germany and a flight across the Mediterranean to Spain, it wasn’t a convenient setting for learning the nuances of a game, but it helped develop the young expat’s love of something uniquely American.
His success also made Jeanty and his parents acknowledge what the game of football could mean to his future. With encouragement from relatives back home and friends abroad, the family returned to the U.S., settling in suburban Dallas so Jeanty could live up to his full potential on the field. Playing in the ultracompetitive world of Texas high school football, Jeanty wasted little time in making an impression at Lone Star High School in Frisco. But playing time at his preferred spot in the backfield was limited due to older players on the roster.
Jeanty wound up playing all three levels on defense, which gave him a greater understanding of pursuit angles. Coaches lined him up as a slot receiver as well, forcing him to develop his route running as a replacement for current Denver Broncos wideout Marvin Mims Jr., who had graduated. Eventually, Jeanty was handed full-time running back duties, breaking out with 41 touchdowns in 12 games as a senior.
“I was always seeing myself playing in the NFL,” he says. “I was just naturally good at [football] and just always enjoyed it. I got to a point where I saw where I [knew I] really could do something with this, really have a future.”
Lone Star coach Jeff Rayburn says Jeanty never complained about the circuitous route to playing tailback but concedes that it probably hampered Jeanty in the eyes of college recruiters. Ivy League offers poured in but interest among FBS teams was slim going into Jeanty’s final season, in 2021. (The pandemic didn’t help matters.)
Boise State was the exception. The Broncos offered Jeanty after a summer workout on the school’s famous blue turf and then fended off bigger names who came around late in the process.
“I remember the first time I saw him, I was like, Holy smokes. This dude’s built different.” Boise State coach Spencer Danielson
“I remember the first time I saw him, I was like, Holy smokes. This dude’s built different,” Boise State coach Spencer Danielson says. “His first spring game scrimmage, it’s fourth-and-1 and Ashton’s getting reps with our starting offense against our starting defense. He breaks this 75-yard touchdown run. Mind you, I’m the defensive coordinator and I remember being pissed in the moment—but then also being like, That dude’s going to be real special.”
Jeanty came into his own as a sophomore, finishing second in the nation in yards from scrimmage, which earned him All-American honors and the Mountain West Offensive Player of the Year award. After powering Boise State to a surprising league title in the process, the transplanted Texan received plenty of interest—and six-figure NIL offers—to move elsewhere to elevate his profile.
He says he never considered entering the transfer portal, instead showing up at 6 a.m. in the snow when the Broncos’ offseason workouts got underway. “I felt like I had everything that I wanted to accomplish, which most importantly was developing myself into becoming one of the best running backs so that I could play in the NFL,” Jeanty says. “I had every single thing that I needed. There was no question in my mind that I was supposed to stay at Boise State.”
Strength coaches were impressed with how his side won virtually every rep in competitive matches of tug-of-war, and teammates gravitated to the natural leader. Coaches limited his carries in practice, not just to keep Jeanty fresh, but also so their own defense could actually get work in.
The results were astonishing: Jeanty ran for 2,601 yards last season, coming just 27 yards shy of Barry Sanders’s 36-year-old single-season record.
There were times when Dirk Koetter, the former Buccaneers head coach who served as the Broncos’ play-caller, would mutter in disbelief into his headset during a game when the tailback would escape a defensive straitjacket. Others on staff would excitedly offer their own touchdown calls, sometimes before Jeanty even received the ball. “As an offensive coach and somebody that’s involved in the run game, it’s pretty comforting knowing that you’re going to hand the ball to him because good things are going to happen,” says Nate Potter, a former NFL lineman who is now the team’s offensive coordinator.
Jeanty topped 100 yards on the ground in all 14 games (a major college football record) and had 1,970 yards after contact in 2024. The school says he forced an unfathomable 164 missed tackles.
Not everything was easy, however. Boise State went 12–1 and won the Mountain West title game, which gave the Broncos a bye into the College Football Playoff quarterfinals against Penn State. Against the Nittany Lions, Jeanty fumbled twice (losing one) and was held to 3.5 yards per carry in a 31–14 loss. Finishing as runner-up to Travis Hunter for the Heisman Trophy remains a touchy subject as well.
“All throughout life, all throughout sports, things aren’t always going to go your way,” Jeanty says. “I’m past that now. I’m just getting ready to be one of the best running backs in the league.”
That process began right after the new year, when Jeanty moved near a training facility north of Atlanta alongside a handful of other potential draft picks. At 5' 8", he was far from the biggest back in that group—Clemson tailback Phil Mafah stands nearly a head taller—but he was easy to spot. You just had to look for the NFL Films cameras, which were tracking him for a documentary.
It’s easy to see why cameras love Jeanty. He moves with a purposeful fluidity. Every cut, every leap, every stretch is done with an eye toward setting up the next motion. “You want a guy that’s got vision. You want a guy that has contact balance,” says new Dallas head coach Brian Schottenheimer when asked about the demands of the position. “The fronts that we’re facing require guys to be able to make hidden yards. Whether there’s a free safety in the hole or there’s a linebacker or a defensive lineman coming off the point of attack, you’ve got to have a guy who is willing to run through arm tackles.”
Though Schottenheimer wasn’t speaking directly about the back who went to high school a stone’s throw from the Cowboys’ headquarters, he could have been. Take Jeanty’s favorite run from this past season, against Washington State. It’s the first quarter, and Jeanty is in the pistol for a simple zone play, standing straight up in the familiar position that prompted memes likening him to Halloween terror Michael Myers. Quarterback Maddux Madsen takes the snap and immediately hands off to Jeanty. A split second later, a defensive tackle leaps past Boise State’s right guard but can only wave at Jeanty. A linebacker shoots the A-gap and actually gets a hand on Jeanty, but he winds up spinning around the ballcarrier’s hip and lands flat on his back. A defensive end sheds his block and tries to stick out an arm onto Jeanty’s shoulder pads, while a safety coming up in run support goes low in an attempt to take the back out at the knees. Jeanty politely shoves them aside, but the brief pause allows three more Cougars to converge on him. Jeanty quickly sidesteps the three, who bang into each other like something out of a cartoon, then bounces outside and pulls away from two defenders for a 64-yard touchdown.
“Ashton Jeanty puts people in conflict every time he takes the ball because you don’t know how to tackle him—you’re in conflict as a defender,” Danielson says. “If you come high thinking he’s going to cut on you, he’ll run you over like a freight train. If you come low bracing for impact, he’s got the top-end explosiveness to make one cut and he’s out. He puts everybody in conflict, consistently.”
As Jeanty’s workout ends and morning becomes afternoon, he changes into a simple black shirt that frames the word “Disruptive” in large white lettering. It’s a nod to the sports agency he’s signed with, but it’s also an appropriate label for what he envisions himself doing in the league at a position some have written off.
“Turn on the tape if you have any second thoughts,” he says.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Ashton Jeanty Is the Next in Line for the Running Back Renaissance.
