LJ Martin led the Big 12 in rushing and won Offensive Player of the Year. He could have moved on. Instead he's "not done yet" — back to chase BYU's career rushing record and the program's first real Playoff push.
He led the Big 12 in rushing with 1,305 yards on a conference-high 236 carries, scored 12 times, added 36 catches, and walked off with Offensive Player of the Year — the workhorse engine of a BYU team with rising ambitions. He returns for his senior season with two prizes in sight: the school's career rushing record (within about 1,347 yards) and a CFP berth, paired with quarterback Bear Bachmeier in a backfield built to contend. The forward stakes are legacy and a ceiling: the most-used back in his conference, chasing a number that would etch him into BYU history and a season that could put the Cougars in the Playoff for the first time. For Martin, 2026 is the year the productive grinder goes for something permanent.
How he plays
Martin is a high-volume, reliable lead back rather than a flashy one. Our play-by-play has him solidly above-average — a 73rd-percentile yards-per-carry on the heaviest workload in his conference — with the efficiency profile of a grinder (mid-pack success rate and EPA per carry) who wins by accumulation and durability more than explosion. He's a dependable receiver too (36 catches), the every-down sort a Playoff hopeful can lean on for 25 touches without blinking. The game is steadiness: he doesn't come off the field, he doesn't fumble away games, and over four quarters the yards pile up. For a team chasing its first Playoff, that kind of bell-cow reliability is its own form of star power.
