Ashton Jeanty's NFL outlook after Boise State superstar declares for 2025 Draft
In a move that surprised exactly no one, Boise State's superstar running back Ashton Jeanty declared for the 2025 NFL Draft on Friday.
The junior rusher has been the best running back in college football by a pretty significant margin this season. He's run for 2,288 yards and 28 total touchdowns on the season, and is just 341 yards shy of Barry Sanders' all-time rushing mark with two games left in his season. He's neck-and-neck with Colorado's two-way wunderkind Travis Hunter for the Heisman Trophy, and has become one of the biggest stars in the sport.
"I feel like I'm the best player in the country," Jeanty said at the Mountain West Conference championship news conference.
But how will Jeanty's game translate to the next level? Will he be the next Saquon Barkley, a game-changing franchise running back in an era when those players are fewer and further between than ever before? Or will he be Leonard Fournette, the supremely talented LSU alum who just couldn't quite make the leap to stardom at the next level?
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He's not a huge back, standing just 5'9" and weighing in at 215 pounds, but he's incredibly solidly built. His lower center of gravity makes him incredibly tough to tackle at first contact. He's a patient runner, with a knack for following blocks into daylight, and incredibly agile, allowing him to cut and dodge tacklers, and the ability to get back up to speed quickly.
If you're going to have a chance of slowing him down, at least in college, you have to hit him at or behind the line of scrimmage, because his elusiveness makes him incredibly difficult to bring down in the second level. He reaches top speed quickly, and when he does, he's likely to break a decent gain. His vision is excellent, and his lateral quickness allows him to make moves in the open field when he needs to.
He's shown himself to be a valuable asset in the passing game, as well; he racked up 43 catches for 569 yards and five touchdowns in 2023, and while those numbers regressed this year, that's a product of his dominance running the ball and Boise's lackluster passing game, rather than something concerning about his hands.
That doesn't mean he's a perfect prospect, though. There are concerns that Jeanty lacks an upper gear in his speed; while he hits top speed quickly, he seems to lack another gear beyond that to separate from tacklers, as he hasn't really needed to do so in college. Lacking that top speed could limit his upside in the pros. He occasionally struggles in short yardage situations as a result of his pad level when he approaches the line of scrimmage.
He's a capable pass blocker, but not necessarily always a good one; his technique is in need of a fair amount of refinement when he gets to the next level
At the end of the day, though, those flaws are either correctible or not a huge deal; Jeanty feels like a star in the making at this point, he fits well in modern NFL offenses, and we could be looking at a potentially historic back joining the pros next year.
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