CFB Zeitgeist Score
69
Solid starter in the position cohort. Carried by yards / carry at the 97th percentile.
Chris Johnson Jr.
Below the discourse floor — the honest stats-only state.
479 RUSH YDS · 4 RUSH TD · 67 CARRIES
2026 Outlook
Returning to SMU for 2026
2026 Depth chart
Projected starter
Running back · SMU
Returning around him
2026 Award watch
No preseason watch lists yet (most drop June 15 – July 15)
SMU · Last season: 9-4 (AP #25) · Talent rank #25 · 2026 recruiting class #31
RB · SMU · ACC
CFB Zeitgeist Score
69
Solid starter in the position cohort. Carried by yards / carry at the 97th percentile.
Heisman Heat
#524
<1% win probability
Fan Belief
Awaiting
Player-specific FI not yet ingested. Falls back to team mood below.
Respect Gap
Awaiting
Coming online with player-level FI.
Reality Gap
Awaiting
Coming online with player-level FI.
ACCOLADE PROBABILITY
Heisman
<1%
TOP RB AWARD
Doak Walker
—
CONSENSUS
All-American
—
Player Standing · 17 rungs
Tier 2 · StarterStarter. A locked-in starting role.
Development Trajectory · rushing yards
2023–2025Up 556% from first season to most-recent.
Career Arc
The durable bio layer: position, size, hometown, and roster role.
How big the prospect was before college, and whether the later career arc beat that expectation.
| Class | Profile | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 4-star | 0.9121 | No. 261 recruit | HighSchool | Miami |
Portal movement changes role, context, and perception. This keeps that path in one place.
| Season | Move | Context |
|---|---|---|
| No transfer portal moves on file for this player. | ||
Where the player landed at the end of the listed season — final nowcast rank, win/finalist/ballot probabilities, and the cleanest official Heisman placement on file.
HIGH CONFIDENCE· through week 16Heisman Futures
Not yet listed on major futures markets.
Selector Grid · 2025
Selector recognition fills in once the major honors lists (AP, FWAA, AFCA, Walter Camp, Sporting News, SI) are scraped and ingested.
NIL · Recruiting · NFL Draft
Market value, pedigree & pro outcome
Recruit stars
★★★★☆
to Miami
Composite
0.9121
#261 national
Today’s Hot-Take
The Hot-Take engine fires when this player’s percentile profile crosses a defensible threshold (top 10% in a cohort, 100+ snap sample). When it’s quiet, the model is honoring its “must be defensible” rule.
Anti-Take
PENDINGThe contrarian read fires when the rules-engine detects a stat that complicates the Hot-Take. Quiet here means the model hasn’t found a defensible counter yet — not that one doesn’t exist.
Fan sentiment ·
Belief Meter
100
Grounded Optimism
Top Take
“”
Trajectory
Rival Radar
No rival-bucket mentions in the current season.
Signature Story
He hasn't written his page yet — we'll start filling it in when there are enough snaps to rank against his peers.
Signature Moment
No signature moment on the ledger yet.
Returns once this player puts together a multi-game body of work — single-game flashes alone don't clear the bar.
Season Pace · Projection
Where the rushing totals stand
The fast read on the thing that makes this player more than a generic stat line.
Chris Johnson Jr.'s story is about how role and output meet each other. For SMU, the card already shows enough current-season production to explain why he is on the serious-player board, and the next layer is determining whether the profile is just very good or actually distinctive.
Traditional stats first. Advanced context underneath.
Last season
2025 season snapshot | final
30-second read
Efficient runner | Passing-game back against FBS RB peers.
2025 season snapshot | final
Rushing
Receiving
Game Log · Week-by-week
2025 season · 13 games
| Wk | Opp | CAR | YDS | AVG | TD | LONG | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wk 1 | W 42-13vs East Texas A&M | 6 | 44 | 7.3 | 1 | 22 | |
| Wk 2 | L 45-48vs Baylor | 6 | 21 | 3.5 | 0 | 8 | |
| Wk 3 | W 28-10@ Missouri State | 6 | 46 | 7.7 | 0 | 29 | |
| Wk 4 | L 24-35@ TCU | 5 | 19 | 3.8 | 0 | 13 | |
| Wk 6 | W 31-18vs Syracuse | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Wk 7 | W 34-10vs Stanford | 5 | 96 | 19.2 | 1 | 87 | |
| Wk 8 | W 35-24@ Clemson | 6 | 59 | 9.8 | 1 | 30 | |
| Wk 9 | L 12-13@ Wake Forest | 8 | 29 | 3.6 | 0 | 11 | |
| Wk 10 | W 26-20vs Miami | 4 | 2 | 0.5 | 0 | 2 | |
| Wk 11 | W 45-13@ Boston College | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Wk 13 | W 38-6vs Louisville | 6 | 19 | 3.2 | 0 | 5 | |
| Wk 14 | L 35-38@ California | 10 | 128 | 12.8 | 1 | 54 | Season-high 128 yds |
| Bowl | W 24-19vs Arizona | 5 | 16 | 3.2 | 0 | 8 | |
| Total | 67 | 479 | 6.8 | 4 | 87 |
Traditional history
Season rows up top, career context at the bottom.
Season context · Team result + system
Advanced metrics second
Usage, value, and opponent-adjusted context.
Opponent-adjusted rushing value. It helps separate empty volume from carries that actually move the scoreboard.
How much of the team's offense flows through this back once rushing work and receiving work are combined.
Every percentile is compared against players at the same position and level, so an FBS quarterback is judged against FBS quarterbacks, not the whole sport.
The top tables stick to the stats fans already know from broadcasts and box scores. Advanced context is pushed underneath instead of replacing the basics.
| Group | Metric | Value | Rank | Pct | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rushing | Rushing yards | 479 | #172/735 | 77th pct | Volumevs FBS RB |
| Rushing | Rush TD | 4 | #154/739 | 79th pct | Scoringvs FBS RB |
| Rushing | Yards / carry | 7.1 | #53/735 | 93rd pct | Efficiencyvs FBS RB |
| Receiving | Receptions | 17 | #111/552 | 80th pct | Volumevs FBS RB |
| Receiving | Receiving yards | 180 | #76/548 | 86th pct | Volumevs FBS RB |
| Value | Rushing WEPA | +0.23 | #35/362 | 91st pct | Opponent-adjusted rushing value | 62 weighted playsvs FBS RB |
| Usage | Role share | 10.8% | #293/738 | 60th pct | Share of team offensevs FBS RB |
| Rushing | Rushing LONG | 87 | #11/733 | 99th pct | Metricvs FBS RB |
| Rushing | Carries | 67 | #252/739 | 66th pct | Volumevs FBS RB |
| Receiving | Receiving LONG | 42 | #63/540 | 89th pct | Metricvs FBS RB |
| Receiving | Yards / catch | 10.6 | #101/548 | 82nd pct | Efficiencyvs FBS RB |
| Receiving | Receiving TD | 1 | #60/552 | 89th pct | Scoringvs FBS RB |
| Returns | Kick return yards | 64 | #86/200 | 57th pct | Volumevs FBS RB |
| Returns | Kick return avg | 16.0 | #132/199 | 34th pct | Efficiencyvs FBS RB |
| Returns | Kick returns | 4 | #69/206 | 67th pct | Volumevs FBS RB |
| Usage | Rush share | 18.4% | #282/738 | 62nd pct | Ground-game usagevs FBS RB |
| Usage | 1st-down usage | 12.7% | #283/738 | 62nd pct | Early-down loadvs FBS RB |
| Usage | Standard-down usage | 10.9% | #324/738 | 56th pct | Base-situation sharevs FBS RB |
| Usage | 2nd-down usage | 10.8% | #311/738 | 58th pct | Middle-down loadvs FBS RB |
| Usage | Passing-down usage | 10.5% | #182/738 | 75th pct | Known-passing sharevs FBS RB |
| Usage | 3rd-down usage | 6.8% | #351/738 | 53rd pct | Money-down loadvs FBS RB |
| Usage | Pass share | 4.8% | #172/738 | 77th pct | Air-game usagevs FBS RB |
| Ball Security | Fumbles lost | 0 | #1/256 | 100th pct | Turnoversvs FBS RB |
Universal 17-step ladder. Tier pills below; accolade streams nested.
AWAITING CLASSIFICATION
AWAITING CLASSIFICATION · Rung None of 16
Why he’s here
Standing classification populates when honors, Heisman, and roster signals all align.
What moves him up
What moves him down
Accolade streams
Heisman model tracks the top FBS contenders weekly; this player hasn't entered the watch list yet.
Splits · Per-game
2025 season · 13 games
Home vs Road
| YDS/g | YPC | TD/g | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home7g | 28.3 | 6.1 | 0.3 |
| Road6g | 46.8 | 7.5 | 0.3 |
Win vs Loss
| YDS/g | YPC | TD/g | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wins9g | 31.3 | 7.3 | 0.3 |
| Losses4g | 49.2 | 5.9 | 0.2 |
First half vs Second half
| YDS/g | YPC | TD/g | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weeks 1-77g | 34.6 | 7.5 | 0.3 |
| Weeks 8+6g | 39.5 | 6.0 | 0.3 |
Pocket and defense-quality (clean vs. pressure) splits are coming soon.
Savant · Box-rate percentiles
Where this profile ranks vs the RB cohort
Elite: yards / carry (97th). Strength: long run (96th). Concern: carries (27th).
Percentiles versus same-position peers with enough snaps this season, based on box-score rates.
Advanced Savant · RB · 2024
Advanced opponent-adjusted percentile bars are coming soon for this player.
Opponent-adjusted advanced metrics with a cohort filter.
Peer Comparator · Fingerprint match
Three closest profiles by box-rate percentile
Closest peers by overall box-score percentile profile at the same position.
Player DNA
Threatens defenses in every dimension — rushing, receiving, third-down.
His 2025 production profile sits closest to Lawrance Toafili’s 2023 season.
Lawrance Toafili
James Cook
Stacy Sneed
Treshaun Ward
Nate Noel
Matches Lawrance on
Differs from Lawrance on
Not enough data yet for this comparison.
As a junior, his production profile tracks closest to Jai'Den Thomas's junior season at UNLV (2025).
Jai'Den Thomas
Jahmyr Gibbs
Brandon Chatman
Daylan Smothers
Keshawn King
Matches Jai'Den on
Differs from Jai'Den on
Supporting Cast · Scheme
Staff and system around the player
Head Coach
Rhett Lashlee
Pass share
53.7%
460 pass / 396 run
Plays / game
65.8
13 games
OL sack rate (allowed)
5.4%
333 dropbacks · PBP
Scheme: Balanced.
Coaching Lineage · 2023–2025
1 coachPlayed his entire career under Rhett Lashlee.
Off-field context — switch tabs to drill into recruit profile, transfer arc, or roster timeline.
No fields populated yet.
No fields populated yet.
Every honor on the ledger, broken out by stream and selector.
All-America, all-conference, player-of-the-week, watch-list, and postseason awards land here when they're earned. The absence is the signal: most players never collect formal honors, and that's its own kind of context.
Season-end distinction and week-by-week recognition on one timeline.
| Season | Honor | Scope | Team / Selector | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No formal honors on the ledger yet. All-America, all-conference, weekly awards, watch lists, and postseason trophies land here when they’re earned. | ||||
Modeled rank and official finish by season.
Team, conference, and class by season.