Is Hampton the best back in the draft from The Athletic.
Dane Brugler was on the panel.
“Dane: I think it’s a conversation — and I like Hampton a lot. He is my number two running back, but if I ran strictly outside zone, and that’s the type of running back I wanted, Kaleb Johnson from Iowa would absolutely be part of that conversation. Because that’s where he got his master’s degree, outside zone. He’s just so adept at it. But with Hampton, he can do gap or zone, and he’d be fine in whatever blocking scheme you’re running, but he also has a lot of the physical traits that you want.
He’s got a thick square build, he’s got speed, run strength. He can really tilt the field with that forward lean, so he’s going to barrel through tacklers. His burst for a 220-pound athlete is also really impressive. He is another guy that has some of the running back-specific traits in terms of his ability to read blocks, set up defenders, and cut back. He’s really strong off his plant foot, so he has speed in and out of his cuts, and he can catch the ball in the backfield.
Those pivot routes they ran at North Carolina over and over and over again show that. The best compliment you can pay Omarion Hampton is that last year, he ran for over 1,400 yards with Drake Maye as his quarterback. This year, where it was basically the Omarion Hampton show and nobody else, he still ran for over 1,400 yards. He was still productive, even though the passing game was not there. So all-purpose rushing yards, it didn’t matter what was going on around him with the quarterback or offensive line, he was able to produce. He’s not the most creative back, but he has that mix of bruising speed and vision.
"The Athletic Football Show" discusses why North Carolina's Omarion Hampton is the second-best running back in this year's draft class.
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