SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Ask Ashton Jeanty’s teammates and coaches about their favorite moment from the superstar running back in 2024, and you get a range of responses.
The slaloming, 26-yard cut-back against Georgia Southern, one of his six touchdowns in the season opener.
The 70-yard score in the fourth quarter against Oregon, running away from the Ducks defense.
The 63-yard touchdown on the first offensive play against Utah State.
The 75-yard touchdown just before halftime of the Mountain West championship against UNLV, giving the Broncos a three-score lead at the break.
Everyone has their own favorite. “I’ve got a lot,” head coach Spencer Danielson said this week at Fiesta Bowl media day. “Every game, whichever one he hit was my new favorite.”
For Jeanty, it was his 64-yard, first-quarter touchdown against Washington State, bouncing off all 11 Wazzu defenders on his way to the end zone, quarterback Maddux Madsen and receiver Cam Camper trailing just behind to create his personal motorcade.
Ashton Jeanty made Washington State’s defense look like a JV squad. I’ve never seen more forced missed tackles on a RB tape.
Just watch these 5 clips. #RB1 pic.twitter.com/kVZGdYLBeR
— Dane Brugler (@dpbrugler) September 29, 2024
“It showed my agility, my power, my speed,” said Jeanty, “all the things that make a good running back.”
His endless highlight reel will be one of the lasting stories of the 2024 college football season — a sledgehammer in shoulder pads, demolishing defenders in his path. Jeanty didn’t win the Heisman Trophy, coming up just short against Colorado’s Travis Hunter, a competition and debate that will also linger. Same for the official single-season rushing record, with Jeanty finishing 27 yards shy of the mark Barry Sanders set in 1988. Yet the first unanimous All-American in Boise State history still finished with 2,601 rushing yards, second-most all-time, and 30 total touchdowns, delivering one of the most impressive and memorable seasons by a running back in the history of the sport.
And the newly expanded College Football Playoff helped elevate that performance.
Boise State came up short in the first season of the 12-team CFP as well, the No. 3 seed Broncos falling 31-14 to No. 6 Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl. It brought a dream season to a disappointing end, with Boise State reclaiming its spot as the top Group of 5 program but unable to pull off another program-defining upset here in the desert. The Nittany Lions did better than any opposing defense all season to bottle up Jeanty, holding him to a season-low 104 rushing yards on 30 carries, with no touchdowns and a pair of forced fumbles, Penn State recovering one of them.
“One thing we struggled with was their movement. They have a great D-line, front seven,” Jeanty said of the Penn State defense. “It wasn’t really that they did anything extraordinary. They executed. They tackled. We didn’t play our best. I didn’t take care of the ball. So that’s why we weren’t able to get the job done.”
Jeanty didn’t go out on his highest note, though suggestions that the Fiesta Bowl exposed him as a G5 yardage merchant cowering against Big Ten talent is trying too hard to diminish what he’s accomplished. Penn State has been an elite run defense all season, with only three teams rushing for more yards against the Nittany Lions this season than Boise State did — USC, Ohio State, Oregon — and only one other individual running back eclipsing 100 yards. Jeanty remains a sure-fire first-round pick in the upcoming NFL Draft who could potentially go as high as the top 10.
Tuesday night’s result did expose some of the flaws in the CFP’s seeding process. The Broncos vaulted from ninth in the final rankings to a top-four seed and first-round bye to the quarterfinals as a result of their conference title, a format that will no doubt get adjusted. That’s all fair, but so was Boise State earning its way to the Playoff as the highest-ranked G5 champion, regardless of outcome. But even beyond that, the expanded Playoff — and Boise being in the thick of that race all season — heightened the attention on Jeanty’s week-to-week performances.
It became one of the supplemental benefits of the new 12-team field, the same one enjoyed by running back Cam Skattebo and Arizona State and coach Curt Cignetti and Indiana. Even those oft-overlooked teams that were in the mix but didn’t earn a bid, like Army and BYU, raked in the recognition (and scrutiny) that comes with the new-look Playoff jockeying.
Jeanty’s legacy is cemented in Boise and among the blue-turf faithful. The community has rightly wrapped its arms around a player who will forever be a fan favorite for a generation of Broncos. This would have happened regardless of the CFP format, and Jeanty and Boise State probably would have enjoyed a moment or two in the limelight during the four-team era. But it would have paled in comparison to the shine they received this season.
An imperfect but much-needed Playoff expansion has driven added excitement to college football, widening the path to a national championship for a notoriously restrictive sport. Lucky for us, part of that is amplifying all those extra teams vying for contention.
Ashton Jeanty and 2024 Boise State are a sterling example, and one that deserves a proper coda, even in defeat. A special player significantly raised the level of his team, making the most of every eyeball and opportunity that came with it.
There might not be a Heisman Trophy or CFP win to show for it, but the expanded Playoff provided Jeanty an elevated platform on which to run. He did so in a way college football won’t soon forget.
(Photo: Christian Petersen / Getty Images)
