Running Back – East Carolina

5’9 188 lbs

Strengths

A running back to keep tabs on throughout the draft process is Keaton Mitchell out of Eastern Carolina. He’s a prospect who declared for the draft early as so few others out of non-power five schools do. After a meek showing in his redshirt year, he took the reigns for the following two seasons putting up 3,089 yards and 25 touchdowns during this time. During his final season with the Pirates, he averaged 7.2 YPC and was secure with the football as exhibited by his total of zero fumbles.

Speed

Some things just cannot be taught, speed is one such thing. Luckily for Mitchell, he has an honorary doctorate for being the fastest man on the field, and that might just hold at the NFL Combine during his workouts. As shown by GPS-captured data, Mitchell hit 22.6 MPH on this 81-yard touchdown run.

Vision

Football IQ separates athletes playing football from football players that are athletes. Mitchell shows this through countless reps of manipulating defenders into unfavorable angles, allowing him to sprint past. Furthermore, this ability to bend the second level of defenses to his will led to him leading all of college football in runs of 15 yards or more. An example of this is shown below.

Holy hell Keaton Mitchell pic.twitter.com/M5Pxq7yRgn

— Tyler Browning (@DiabeticTyler) February 16, 2023

He is tasked with running a zone concept where he is responsible for finding an opening and taking it at full speed. In this play, he follows his blocks to the right until the safety (#10) bites. Once this occurs, Mitchell plants his foot and uses his burst to beat the players that remained home on the far side of the formation to the left side edge for a 26-yard gain.

Weaknesses

As yet another addition to the collection of smaller running back prospects coming out this season, Mitchell may just be one of the smallest. We’ll see exactly where he measures in at the NFL Combine, but he’s definitely one of the smaller prospects. As a side effect of playing at this size his whole life, he shies away from contact in the box and often concedes space by running out of bounds before making contact with a would-be tackler. Speaking of contact, breaking free of tackles is not within his toolset as he often goes down to the first man who gets a grip on his uniform.

NFL Fit and Draft Capital

As an asset for an NFL team, Mitchell provides a specialized set of qualities that projects most accurately as a committee running back. He’d thrive being the lightning to another player’s bruising thunder. Additionally, this archetype is not usually one to exceed 10-12 touches in a game, regardless of injury to the starter.

For your dynasty rookie drafts, expect him to be a late third to early fourth-round pick. He is a more valuable asset for best ball as his likely role would leave his production unpredictable yet very much worth a roster spot. Really, anyone with the ability to outrun an NFL defense is.

According to the NFL mock draft database, he is a firm Day 3 running back with an average slot of 180. Within this range an ideal landing spot would be with Arizona as they pick at both 170 and 181, giving them an ample shot at him. Furthermore, playing second fiddle to James Conner in what is built to be a spread offense would be a very fun situation to watch. As for a player comparison, I’m going with Matt Breida.

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