Texas Football: Ezekiel Elliott praises RB coach Stan Drayton

Texas football has a good one at the running backs coach position with tenured assistant Stan Drayton, and he has notable praise coming his way.

You have to respect some of the work that the running backs coach Stan Drayton is doing on the trail for Texas football recruiting for the couple of cycles that are taking to the forefront right now. Drayton, and running backs assistant (also former LSU Tigers/North Carolina Tar Heels quarterback) Brandon Harris are putting in some great work on the recruiting trail right now.

But the work that Drayton and Harris, among others on the Texas coaching staff, are doing stems beyond just the recruiting trail at the moment. They’ve built out a three-headed monster at running back that should provide more depth and potency coming from that position group that the Longhorns got since at least the 2016 season.

Texas got steadily better at running back since the 2017 season. The combination of Roschon Johnson and Keaontay Ingram provided the most productive running back duo for the Longhorns in at least the last three years, starting last season.

Ingram and Johnson combined for more than 1,900 total yards from scrimmage and 17 touchdowns. They each also averaged well over five yards per carry last season.

But Drayton was able to do some great work on the recruiting trail to add the nation’s top ranked 2020 running back prospect, five-star Salpointe Catholic product Bijan Robinson, to this ever-improving backfield through the 2020 signing class. Robinson should have a shot to make an immediate impact this fall, as he was the top rated recruit in the Longhorns 2020 signing class.

Moreover, Drayton received some praise recently from a former running back that he coached up during his time on staff under former two-time National Championship winning head coach Urban Meyer with the Ohio State Buckeyes. Drayton was the running backs coach from 2012-2015, and the wide receivers coach in 2011.

That aforementioned running back that lauded him that he coached up at Ohio State is the current Dallas Cowboys star Ezekiel Elliott. He stood out at running back for the Buckeyes in the final three years that Drayton was the positional coach.

Elliott claimed that Drayton is “my guy” and that he was able to turn him into a “great player”.

That should certainly hold truth to it since Elliott registered more than 4,400 total yards from scrimmage and 44 touchdowns during his three years playing under Drayton and Meyer at Ohio State. He also won a College Football Playoff National Championship back in 2014.

Texas should have a very productive and efficient ground game this year with the likes of Ingram, Johnson, and Robinson lining up alongside rising star senior dual-threat quarterback Sam Ehlinger. It could be a special year with a rejuvenated coaching staff on the Forty Acres in the midst of an altered season due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.