On Saturday night, Ashton Giunty was like a pinball, bouncing off Washington State defenders over and over again with another dominant rushing performance. Giunty made undefeated Washington State’s defense look like it didn’t even belong on the same field as him. The 5-foot-9, 215-pound running back had one of the most impressive performances ever seen, totaling 259 yards and four touchdowns on 26 carries.
At least until the next time Jeanty takes the field.
“He just plays this one-sided game, he’s violent, he’s explosive,” Boise State coach Spencer Danielson told CBS Sports.
Boise State’s Starbuck became a must-see on television, even though most of the nation might be asleep while he played. Giunty is the best running back in the country, and it’s past time to start talking about him as a realistic Heisman Trophy candidate. Quarterbacks have dominated sports’ highest honors in recent years, winning eight of the last 10 statues, but why is it that the Boise, Idaho-based running back won the award in New York this December? Will he be unable to lift the trophy?
If there’s one player who deserves to be on the team in a very open year, it’s Gianti.
This number is straight out of a video game. Giunty averages a first down every time he’s handed the ball, averaging an impressive 10.3 yards per carry. He leads the nation with 845 rushing yards in just four games. His closest rival, Iowa running back Caleb Johnson, has 160 yards in the rearview mirror.
Below are Giunty’s four-game stats compared to other Heisman Trophy-winning running backs in the 21st century.
Player Team (Year) Attempt Yards Touchdowns Ashton Giunty Boise State (2024) 8284513 Derrick Henry Alabama (2015) 674498 Mark Ingram Alabama (2009) 613474 Reggie Bush USC (2005) 574916
Giunty made a preseason bet with his teammates. If he rushes for 2,000 yards, he’ll have to let go of fear. But when I thought about it, I realized that it was more of a punishment than a stimulus. So he flipped it. If he doesn’t rush 2,000 yards, he will reluctantly get a haircut.
“I don’t want to drown out the fear,” Giunty told CBS Sports. He is currently on pace to rush for over 2,700 yards this season, so his play on the field reflects that. If he does so, he will break Barry Sanders’ single-season rushing yards record (2,628), set in 1988.
It’s not like he’s just defeating a lower-ranked opponent. Giunty ran for 192 yards and three touchdowns in a 37-34 loss to No. 7 Oregon. He has home run ability, with Giunty scoring five touchdowns of 50 yards or more, but he can also wear down with each run. Janty has the perfect blend of strength, speed, and footwork, making him virtually impossible to stop. Last Saturday night, I almost felt sick watching Washington State’s defense try to tackle him haplessly.
If you want to beat him, you better take him. Giunty is one of the strongest players on Boise State’s roster, works out frequently with the offensive linemen, and squatted 605 pounds this spring. He could have done even more if his strength and conditioning coaches would have let him.
“Defenders always collide when they try to tackle Ashton Giunty,” Danielson said. “If you don’t come in with a low pad, he’s going to run you over. If you come in too high, he’s going to make a move, and he’s gone. You can’t catch him. They don’t know. He has very good balance and very good extreme power and is an absolute weapon in the passing game, so how do you take that? .”
Danielson still remembers Giunty’s first scrimmage as a 2022 early enrollee. The true freshman, who started working with the first team from the moment he arrived on campus, stole the ball on a 20-yard third-and-1. line. Danielson, the program’s defensive coordinator at the time, made a complete sell-out defensive call to stop the run. It didn’t matter. Giunty burst through the B-gap, leapt over the linebacker and sprinted for an 80-yard touchdown. Far from being fazed by his defense, Danielson knew the freshman running back was going to be special and would soon cause opposing defensive coordinators big problems.
Since then, Giunty has gotten better and better and could eventually become the best of Boise State’s running back alumni, which includes Doug Martin, Alexander Mattison and Jay Ajayi. He is almost certain to be the starting running back in the 2025 NFL Draft and is currently projected to be a first-round pick.
In the modern era of college football, it feels like a miracle that Giunty is still at Boise State. After a remarkable sophomore season in which he ran for 1,347 yards and 14 touchdowns, the Vultures were surrounding the Broncos’ offensive star. Giunty was briefly scouted out of Lone Star High School in Texas, but now all the big boys wanted him. The interest was so extreme, even desperate, that other programs called Boise State running backs coach James Montgomery directly about him, Giunty said.
“It’s a crazy world we live in in college football today,” Giunty told CBS Sports of the experience with a laugh.
Giunty prayed about the situation and consulted his family about what to do, but his commitment to Boise State never wavered. He has a good relationship with Danielson, who was promoted to the top job on Dec. 3, and Boise State believes in him in a way that other schools in Texas didn’t until it was too late. I appreciated that.
“Since I’ve been here, they’ve just been trying to keep me here and keep me in this program,” Giunty said. “The Texas schools, all the schools, know what they missed. I’m not going to say the schools, but they saw what I could do after last season and decided to go after me. But it’s their fault. They missed it.” ”
Don’t miss the magic of Ashton Giunty this season, lest you end up like your rival school. There’s still plenty of room for this bandwagon to travel from Boise to its likely destination in New York.