Silver And Black Pride
Diving into how the Raiders’ first-round pick saw a dramatic rise in production last season
Las Vegas Raiders first-round pick and the sixth overall selection of the 2025 NFL Draft, former Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty, saw a dramatic increase in production last season.
While he ran for 1,344 yards and 14 touchdowns in 2023, the former Bronco doubled those numbers and threatened Barry Sanders’ long-standing NCAA records with 2,595 yards and 29 touchdowns last fall.
That begs the question: What was the difference between the two campaigns?
Multiple factors play into the answer, the first being volume. Jeanty ran the ball 375 times in 2024 compared to 217 attempts the year before, a difference of 158 touches. For good measure, his efficiency was pretty similar during the two campaigns, with averages of 6.9 yards per carry and 6.2.
Part of the reason Jeanty didn’t tote the rock as much two years ago is that Boise State had another quality running back in George Holani, who entered 2023 with two 1,000-yard campaigns under his belt, one of the two coming during the previous season.
Holani logged 757 rushing yards and seven touchdowns on 133 attempts while sharing the backfield with Jeanty and went on to sign with the Seattle Seahawks as an undrafted free agent.
Granted, Holani missed five games with an injury, but he did play in a couple of contests that Jeanty had to miss, and the latter wasn’t nearly as much of the Broncos’ featured back as he was this past season. In 2023, the Heisman Trophy runner-up accounted for about 40 percent of the team’s rushing attempts compared to 69 percent in 2024.
Jeanty became known for his ability to break tackles last season, leading the country with 152 missed tackles forced and 1,970 yards after contact, per Pro Football Focus. Obviously, those numbers weren’t nearly as high in 2023 with the decrease in overall volume: 82 and 981, respectively.
However, his efficiency in both metrics was nearly identical season to season. He averaged 0.4 missed tackles per attempt last fall and 0.38 the year before, in addition to his yards after contact accounting for 75.9 percent of his total yards in ‘24 and 73.8 percent in ‘23.
Statistically, the biggest difference in Jeanty’s play is that he became more of a home run hitter and had better ball security last season.
Two years ago, the Boise State product had 19 ‘breakaway’ runs or a rushing attempt of 15-plus yards once every 11.4 carries, per PFF. He recorded 545 rushing yards on such attempts to account for 40.6 percent of his rushing production. Last year, those numbers ballooned up to 36 breakaway runs at a clip of 8.75 per touch for 1,366 yards and 52.6 percent of his total rushing yards.
So, Jeanty’s explosive play numbers did get a boost from the increased workload, but his ability in this area of the game also improved to become more explosive more frequently.
While the former Bronco’s...
