Top NFL Draft prospect Ashton Jeanty had one of the most dominant seasons in college football history for Boise State this past season.
The 21-year-old running back ran for 2,601 yards and 29 touchdowns, averaged an astounding seven yards per attempt, and finished his season with the second most yards in a single season in college football history. Only Barry Sanders had more yards in a single season.
Jeanty’s running backs coach, James Montgomery, spoke with Fox News Digital recently to discuss the player’s historic season.
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While he burst onto the national scene and etched himself into the record books in 2024 during his junior season, Jeanty saw similar success as a sophomore.
However, Montgomery said the plan going into Jeanty’s sophomore season was that he was going to be a part of a “two-headed monster.”
“It was kind of crazy because going into the ’23 season I thought it was going to be a two-headed monster, but George (Holani) ended up getting hurt on the second play versus UW. I kind of knew Ash was ready to take over that No.1, kind of lead role in the backfield and, I mean, we really didn’t have a choice,” Montgomery said with a smile.
Jeanty ran for 1,347 yards with 14 rushing touchdowns while he averaged a sparkling 6.1 yards per attempt while catching 43 passes for 569 yards with five receiving touchdowns in his sophomore season.
Though Jeanty took over the lead role, Holani was productive as well. He ran for 748 yards and seven touchdowns. Following that season, Holani signed with the Seattle Seahawks, and is currently on their practice squad.
With Holani in the NFL, it was up to Jeanty to build upon his strong sophomore season and carry the load.
Montgomery saw the beginnings of a special junior year percolate in spring ball.
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“The kind of ‘lightbulb moment’ we were running a duo play in spring ball last year and I saw the way he pressed the hole, and the movements that he did. Cause I kinda say, when we’re running duo, we don’t have any jumpcuts,” Montgomery said.
“And I always say you fall off the table, and you find the chute because you read the first play side backer. And he fell off the table, found the chute, then got to the free hat, made him miss, and looked back at me with a big smile and I knew exactly, yep, the light bulb is really on.” Montgomery said with a smile.
Montgomery said that during the spring he and Jeanty peeled back the layers, and went from Football 101, 201 and 301, which allowed the two to talk about the game at a higher level.
Jeanty continued to train as hard as ever and improved his mental understanding of the game. Montgomery said Jeanty called his offseason preparations “dark mode.”
“He really didn’t do much in the spring and the summer going into that season, but just work. We have one of the hardest workouts in the country. We run upper decks, and he ran every deck of last summer with a weight vest on, so it was kind of crazy to see him do it, and he never lost a rep,” Montgomery said.
“If you just watched him at practice, he’s first in line for every drill that we do, whether it’s offense or special teams, and then just the amount of effort that he brought every single day. It was kind of crazy because he didn’t take too much live action in spring ball, so we thought in fall camp we were going probably try to get him a couple pops to tackle him, and he came out like a mad man in fall camp, and we were like we don’t think he needs it.”
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And Montgomery was right. Jeanty didn’t need it.
In Boise State’s opening game last season against Georgia Southern, Jeanty had 20 carries for 267 yards and six touchdowns, putting up stats you might find in a video game in their 56-45 win.
Montgomery knew right after that performance that Jeanty had a chance to do something special.
“When you started Week 1 with the 267 (yards), I knew we had a chance to do something really special. And so even for me, I had to block out the outside noise. I couldn’t be on Twitter, I couldn’t just be, ‘Yeah, we’re so sweet’ because I knew we just wanted to keep getting better,” Montgomery said.
“Two-thousand yards was our goal initially, and once we started to surpass that and get close to that, we just wanted to keep pushing. I’d remember there’d be sometimes in the game, ‘We’re not done, just keep going’ because I had a coach back in the day when I was coming up that always said, ‘You can always get a little bit more,’ and I wanted to make sure he never got satisfied on the sideline, because it’s a long game and we popped a lot of runs early in games, ‘Hey, bro, we got to keep going, it’s not over.’”
That approach worked well for Jeanty and the Boise State Broncos.
With Jeanty leading the way offensively, the Broncos went 12-2 and won the Mountain West Conference. The Broncos were the No. 3 seed in the College Football Playoff and made it to the Fiesta Bowl, where they were defeated by Penn State 31-14.
Jeanty’s incredible season nearly landed him the Heisman Trophy. Colorado’s Travis Hunter had 552 first-place votes, beating out Jeanty’s 309, making it the closest vote since 2009.
Montgomery won’t say if Jeanty should have won the Heisman.
“I mean I really don’t comment on it too much, because I have a strong bias when it comes to that,” Montgomery said with a grin.
“I got to work with him every day, and I know how good of a person he is, and I know what he was able to do for our program and how he elevated us to be able to even get to where we were at the end of this year and I know how hard he worked and how he battled through injuries and how he took care of his body day-in, day-out, how he was a 3.0 student his time here. So I had a true bias, but you can’t take away from anything that Travis Hunter was able to do. The snaps he played and to play at such a high level on offense and defense, it’s very uncommon.”
The Heisman conversation between Jeanty and Hunter raged on throughout the season, and was hotly debated until the moment it was announced.
Montgomery said the running back style that Jeanty runs with, and made him so successful, reminds him of a Philadelphia Eagles legend.
“I think, Brian Westbrook from back in the day,” Montgomery said. “But I think he’s a blend of a lot of guys. If he was 5’10 215 (pounds) you would say he probably a lot (of LaDainian Tomlinson) in there too, you know what I mean, so I think he is a blend of a lot of guys. The uncanny thing is the way he can make guys miss, and his contact balance is special.”
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As for if he wants Jeanty to land with a certain team or play-style in the NFL Draft, Montgomery is confident that he will thrive which whatever team selects him.
“As a coach and as his coach, you obviously want him to get picked high, but the other piece of it is you want him to go to a situation that has a really good (offensive line). So there’s that you want him to go top 10, but maybe if he went 18 he might get to a better O-line, there is that fine balance,” Montgomery said.
“I mean any scheme, we run a pretty pro-style offense here, and we ran every scheme you can run: inside zone, outside zone, duo, power, counter, toss crack, like we ran every scheme. He understands how to set all of those up, and he knows all the blocking schemes when it comes to all that stuff. I don’t know if there is a specific situation, selfishly I hope he goes to a really good O-line.”
With Jeanty moving on to to the NFL, he leaves behind a huge hole in the Boise State offense and team. Montgomery knows there is no replacing him.
“He was the leader of my room and was the captain of my team and he is going to go down as one of the all-time greats here. It’s not trying to replace him, it’s trying to make sure I build the best room I can as possible. One of the best things I had is him around my young guys, and they saw how hard he worked. One of the things we always say is leave it better than you found it, and having his presence in our room, they all understand the shoes,” Montgomery said.
“It’s not really pressure for them cause that’s their big bro, they want to be like him, and they want to all get their shots and get out there and keep the tradition alive. Definitely, we have some big shoes to fill but I don’t think we’re going to replicate anything because everybody’s different, and he’s obviously a special talent.”
Not only will Montgomery miss the player, but the person Jeanty is too.
“He’s such a fun-loving kind of awesome kid, but the things I’m going to miss is his ability to have fun. Like he’ll be dancing before a snap in practice cause you got the music playing and all of that, and then just to see two seconds before the snap lock back in and just go,” Montgomery said.
Montgomery and the rest of football will find out which team selects the “special talent” that is Jeanty on Thursday, April 24, when the first round of the NFL Draft will take place in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
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