You’d be forgiven for not thinking about Minnesota running back Darius Taylor much this season.
Taylor was a three-star recruit in the Class of 2023, 247Sports’ No. 29 running back in the class. The Golden Gophers finished 5-7 this season, only making a bowl game because the schedule needed to be filled. Taylor only played in five of those games, and he only received a single carry against Nebraska.
You’d only start to raise an eyebrow when you realized he still led the team in rushing yards.
Taylor gained three yards on his one carry against Nebraska, the first game of the season. In the next game against Eastern Michigan, he ran for 193 yards on 33 carries. Might just be the competition, right? Until he followed that up with 138 yards against North Carolina and 198 yards against Northwestern.
He rushed for 529 yards in his first four collegiate games, and he only had one carry in the first one.
Taylor missed most of the rest of the season with a leg injury, coming back for a 59-yard performance on 16 carries against Iowa before returning to the bench again. Even with that performance and the Nebraska game, he still averaged 118.2 yards per game in the regular season. The next-best mark in the Big Ten was Ohio State star TreVeyon Henderson at 94.9.
The budding freshman star came back in the Quick Lane Bowl and picked up right where he left off against Bowling Green, picking up a career-high 208 yards and scoring a touchdown in the fourth quarter to build the lead back up to two scores.
Only four freshman running backs in the FBS ran for more than 730 yards this season, and West Virginia’s Jaheim White was the only one of those who played for a Power 5 school. Taylor ran for 737 in his best four games alone.
This was not a dominant rushing offense he fell into, either. Minnesota was 78th in the country in rushing offense this season. In Taylor’s four full regular-season games, the Golden Gophers averaged 205.75 yards per game on the ground. In the other eight, they averaged 121.25.
Minnesota averaged five yards per carry as a team only four times in 2023: the three games before Taylor got injured and Tuesday’s bowl game. There’s a pretty obvious theme to follow there.
Taylor isn’t simply poised to become one of the best running backs in the country. He already is. If he takes another step forward as a sophomore, or if he even just plays a full 12-game schedule, well, don’t say we didn’t warn you.