Stampede Bonus: 2025 USF Running Backs Breakdown
USF loses a lot in the backfield, but they have plenty of potential replacements.
When we’ve finished profiling an entire unit, we’ll run through a final breakdown of that position group at large. We’ll touch on a quick overview of the group, then I’ll break it down by tiers as far as how I see playing time shaking out. Finally, I’ll pose one Big Question that I have about the unit approaching the season, and my general level of confidence.
If you missed any unit breakdowns, you can find them here:
The Overview:
Note: from left to right, the columns are player number, player name, eligibility, On3 consensus recruit rating out of high school (asterisk if the player transferred to USF), offensive FBS snaps in 2024, career FBS games (with 2024 games in parentheses), career FBS starts (with 2024 starts in parentheses), carries, rushing yards, and rushing TDs, receptions, receiving yards, and receiving TDs, and the school they played at in 2024, if different from USF.
With the advent of the transfer portal and USF seemingly making it a focus to add experienced depth across the roster this offseason, this position group is a bit of an anomaly in how little FBS experience there is. Of course, that leaves out a lot of context: the graphic above includes FBS stats only, and Sam Franklin was an FCS All-American two years ago, and Cartevious Norton played significant snaps at Iowa State for two seasons before transferring to Charlotte in 2024. It’s not like the Bulls are lacking for exciting options here.
But nonetheless: USF is going from a very impressive and productive trio of backs (Kelley Joiner, Nay’Quan Wright, and Ta’Ron Keith) to a backfield whose top yardage total at the FBS level, in their careers, is 525. There’s some reason for concern, to be sure.
The Prospectus:
This is a relatively straightforward unit to break down, in my opinion.
Tier 1: Cartevious Norton and Sam Franklin
Alex Golesh likes to rotate his running backs pretty liberally, and Norton and Franklin appear to be the clear frontrunners in this rotation. I think both of these players were pretty strong portal additions and could have big seasons if the offensive line can continue its late-2024 renaissance.
Norton didn’t have a lot of room to run on a bad Charlotte team last season, but he was a multi-year contributor at Iowa State - and, if you have some time, take a look at his tape. He is an athlete. Click the image below for an example.
And it goes without saying that Franklin has a high ceiling, given that he so recently eclipsed 1,300 yards at UT Martin. For USF’s purposes, I don’t think him being buried on the depth chart in the SEC is that much of a concern.
Again, no sure things here. But I think USF satisfied their offseason roster-building responsibilities with these two.
Tier 2: Alvon Isaac
Golesh has mentioned wanting to go four deep at running back this season, but for the purposes of regular playing time, I think we’re more likely to see a three-man rotation, similar to what USF did in 2024. That leaves one spot left for the rest of the backs.
I don’t think it’s a lock, which is why we’re in a lower tier here, but Isaac seems the best situated of the remaining backs to take that spot. He was the first back off the bench in late-game duties late last season, and he’s been getting plenty of praise all offseason. Isaac’s receiving chops make him an interesting change-of-pace back in the vein of Ta’Ron Keith.
Tier 3: Nykahi Davenport, Jaylen Johnson, Tray Kinkle, and Chase Garnett
Golesh and the staff have been complimentary of all of these backs at one point or another this offseason. I don’t see a ton of playing time for this bunch in 2024, but they’re all still underclassmen eligibility wise, so it’s reasonable to expect that we’ll see a few of these players feature heavily in the future - particularly the true freshmen, Kinkle and Garnett.
The Big Question: Is there a gamebreaker here?
The BAE folks recently discussed the running backs unit on the pod, and the general consensus was “is it weird that I’m not that concerned about this?” I tend to agree entirely! Despite the big losses that we discussed above and the general lack of high-end FBS experience, I feel pretty positive about this group. As mentioned above, I think both transfers were good adds, and I think that there’s enough young talent in the room to fill out the rest of the rotation. There’s little doubt in my mind that it’ll be a quality unit.
That said: can it be a great unit? Because it was pretty close to one last year. During the second half of last season, the running game was basically the only means of generating big plays that USF had in its toolkit. Some of that was due to the improved performance of the offensive line, but a lot of credit goes to the gamebreaking abilities of Kelley Joiner, who absolutely caught fire down the stretch (four games in five in which he eclipsed 6.3 YPC and broke a 30+ yard run) - and even Ta’Ron Keith (three 29+ yard rushes in the last five regular season games) and Nay’Quan Wright (a 64-yarder against FAU). Down the stretch, this was a backfield that was capable of producing chunk plays at a moment’s notice Check out the table below, which shows how productive and explosive USF’s top three running backs were in 2024 compared to 2023.
This big-play ability was desperately needed, because the Bulls struggled with their downfield passing game all season. I’m cautiously optimistic that between Byrum Brown getting healthy and a deeper receivers room, they’ll be significantly improved on that front in 2025, but that’s certainly not a guarantee. And if the downfield passing game doesn’t improve, USF is going to need a career year (again) from one or two of their new running backs if the offense is going to have a puncher’s chance at hanging with the top teams in the American.