Ashton Jeanty chose Boise State over NIL money and now is chasing Barry Sanders

BOISE, Idaho — No chance he was walking away. Not after this journey, not after who and what he had become.

Not for all the NIL money in the world.

Not for the SEC or Big Ten, not for all those Texas schools that ignored him the last time around. Not for any blue blood football factory who believed they could swoop in with a financial bag of empty calories and change Ashton Jeanty by throwing seven-figure NIL deals at him.

There's no chance he was turning his back on the unique and unkind grind that brought him to Boise State, and everything it meant.

“I told those (schools), ‘You guys overlooked me three years ago. Now you want me?’” said Jeanty, Boise State’s star running back and Heisman Trophy candidate. “It just made me realize I made the right decision all along by coming here.”

A decision three years in the making that may just lead to another seminal moment from perennial giant-killer Boise State. A moment of unreachable NCAA records, the College Football Playoff, a Heisman race, and an unthinkable slowing of change – if only to pause and breathe it all in – in the ever-evolving world of college football.

A moment where player, program and purpose intertwine, where someone finally, mercifully, slows the raging gorge of get yours and resets the sport long enough to enjoy what was. For a season, at least.

Jeanty is chasing Barry Sanders’ near immortal NCAA single-season rushing record, and Boise State – the overachiever swimming upstream through two decades of massive college football change – is fighting up in weight class again.

Jeanty has 1,248 yards rushing in six games, and is 1,381 yards from breaking Sanders’ single season record of 2,628 yards. Jeanty has a minimum of seven games remaining, including Friday’s critical Mountain West Conference game at UNLV.

If the Broncos win the MWC and earn a spot in the CFP as the highest-rated Group of Five conference champion, Jeanty will have a minimum of eight more games to break the record Sanders set in 11 games in 1988. And Boise State, which lost at current No. 1 Oregon by three points in Week 2 – the Ducks needed a kick return for a touchdown, a punt return for a touchdown, and a last-second field goal – might just be good enough to win games (plural) in the CFP.

That’s the surface headline. The underlying story of a player and a journey, and his place in a program, runs much deeper.

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Where you are is where you should be

The day after the MWC championship game last December, mere hours after Spencer Danielson guided Boise State through a load of turmoil and won a championship three weeks after the firing of coach Andy Avalos, the reality of today’s college football arrived front and center.

Danielson was officially named head coach at Boise State, and the poaching from power conference schools had begun.

Guess who was at the top of the list? The guy who ran for 153 yards and a touchdown a day earlier, and who ran for 1,357 yards in his second season at Boise State.

Now everyone knew who Ashton Jeanty was. And everyone wanted him.

”The whole time, Ash kept saying to me, ‘I want to be here,’” Danielson said. “I had so many people calling me saying, ‘Hey, Spencer, just a heads up, a bunch of schools are coming for Ash.’ They were just coming and coming, and me and Ash didn’t have one more conversation about it.”

A day after a loss to UCLA in the LA Bowl, with schools still circling the Boise State program and trying to sign Jeanty and more than 12 other starters, Danielson said, the Broncos began offseason workouts.

There at 6 a.m., on the icy blue turf in sub-freezing temperatures, was Jeanty. First player on the field, and leading the squad — ironically, through a tug of war workout.

“He was crushing everyone,” said Boise State linebacker Andrew Simpson. “There was never any doubt he was staying.”

But that didn’t stop cash offers coming from all over the Power Four landscape. It’s an NCAA violation for coaching staffs to contact players who haven’t entered the transfer portal.

Jeanty never entered the portal, nor did any of the other players Danielson says were illegally contacted by Power Four schools.

“I called quite a few coaches, and told them I knew what they were doing, and it was illegal,” Danielson said. “Not surprising, it turned into the blame game. ‘Oh, I didn’t know. Let me look into it.’ Well, I’m protective, and we’re not taking this sitting down.”

Why would he? This is the problem with today’s college football: Group of Five conferences have become feeder teams for the Power Four.

The Group of Five does the heavy lifting, and the Power Four reaps the benefits. That’s why Danielson is so adamant about protecting his players — but also doing so by building a program they don’t want to leave.

You’re not turning down hundreds of thousands of dollars – or in Jeanty’s case, more than a million – if you don’t feel like where you are is where you should be.

“There’s more to life than money,” Jeanty said. “This is my home now. I want to leave a legacy.”  

Boise State is more than one player, or a group of players. It’s a unique DNA bubble built and sustained over nearly half a century by players from all corners, all the way back to the days of junior college football played in the shadows of the bucolic Boise Front Range.

It’s current players like safety Alex Teubner, who grew up in the small beachside town of Seaside, Oregon, where it had been two decades since a high school player even walked on at an Bowl Subdivision school, much less played.

Teubner had zero scholarship offers coming out of high school, and no walk-on invites. His high school coach knew a staffer at Boise State and asked for an opportunity, and Teubner showed up five years ago on the first day of fall camp and didn’t know how to practice.

Now he’s a team captain and an All-MWC safety.

It’s guard Ben Dooley, an all-state wrestler in Nevada who showed up in Boise six years ago, worked through various injuries and is having his best season yet in his sixth year of eligibility.

It’s edge Ahmed Hassanein, the first FBS player from Egypt, whose older brother became a guardian of sorts in 2019 and brought Ahmed to California ― where he played football for the first time as a sophomore in high school. Five years later, Hassanein has had a sack in 14 of the last 16 of Boise State's games, and leads a defense that’s currently No. 1 in the nation in sacks (29).

It’s former Broncos coach Dirk Koetter (now the offensive coordinator), who admits he never should’ve left Boise for a bigger college job so many years ago. Bigger isn't necessarily better.

It's former Broncos stars Matt Miller (wide receivers coach) and Jabril Frazier (edge coach), who never got a chance to experience playoff postseason.

It’s co-offensive coordinator Nate Potter, who arrived as a grayshirt in 2007, a year after the greatest postseason upset in the modern era: Boise State’s 43-42 victory over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl, the game that launched a thousand dreams on the blue turf. Potter developed into an All-American, had a cup of coffee in the NFL and was pulled right back to Boise in 2014 as a quality control coach.

This place burrows deep into the soul, a transcendent time for those who choose to invest.

“If you pour into this program," Dooley said, "It will pour into you.”

"It was all meant to be"

Midway through fall camp, and with Danielson sensing a talented team ready for a big season, Jeanty showed up at his office in a serious mood with a humble request.

He wanted to be baptized. And he wanted Danielson to officiate.

The long, twisted, and at times tumultuous, road that led Jeanty to Boise brought him here for a reason. The transient life of an military family that began in Florida, and included two stops in Virginia, then to Naples, Italy, and finally to Texas, shaped Jeanty’s young life.

Playing varsity football in Europe when he was 14. Taking 20-hour bus rides to play games against other high schools on other American bases, once from Naples to Switzerland and soaking in the moving, almost surreal scenery of driving through the Swiss Alps.

Playing in Germany and Brussels and Spain, and desperately trying (and failing) to speak fluent Italian before eventually settling for enough to just get by. Then finally convincing his father, Harry, that the family had to return to the states if he had any chance to play college football.

Only to make his mark with one of the greatest single seasons in Texas high school football history — and no FBS coach in the state cared. Not one scholarship offer.

There had to be a reason, he told Danielson, his journey found its way to Boise. When Harry and his wife, Pamela, dropped off their son three years ago, Harry told Ashton, “What is for you, is for you.”

Translation: there's a plan for everyone.

“It was very emotional,” Harry Jeanty said. “I’m pretty sure he saw me crying.”

Three years later, Ashton was standing on a stage at Capital Christian Church with Danielson, who couldn’t stop crying. More than 50 of his teammates were there among more than 1,000 in the sanctuary, and his family on live stream.

“Never been more nervous,” Jeanty said. “But once I got in the water, it all went away. You come out of that water a new man. Best decision I ever made.”

A week later and just before the season, a group of players showed up at Danielson’s office and asked to be baptized. “About 15-20 of them,” Danielson said.

So he and the players walked out of his office, down the steps of Albertson’s Stadium, through the famed blue turf and across the street to the Boise River — and left it all there.

“Phenomenal,” Jeanty said. “This team, this place. It was all meant to be.”

Chasing Barry Sanders

Jeanty swipes open his phone and pulls up the YouTube app, and it’s easy to see what everyone is saying.

Not only is he chasing college football immortality in Barry Sanders, he darn near looks and plays just like him. It’s almost blasphemous to even think it.

Yet there they are ― and son of a gun if they’re not cut from the same cloth. Size, speed, vision, and of course, jaw-dropping highlights.

Jeanty squats 600 pounds, and benches nearly 400 pounds. He has hit speeds of 21-22 miles per hour on game days this season, and the strength and acceleration, balance and control, and hop-step and jump looks just like You Know Who.

Get this: Jeanty has 914 yards rushing after contact this season, which is more total rushing yards than every running back in college football except Iowa’s Kaleb Johnson.

Jeanty is averaging nearly 10 yards per carry, and seven yards – seven yards – after contact.

“If you watch the play from the back angle, with the defense's butts to the camera, you can’t see him," said Boise State running backs coach James Montgomery. "That’s why he breaks so many tackles. His footwork is so good, getting to his spots. He pops out of there, and the next thing you know, you’ve got a real dude coming at you, running through your face. He plays gritty, plays with a chip on his shoulder every play.

"The bright lights come on, and he shows you exactly what it's about."

Building the legacy

Earlier this week, Jeanty announced, in partnership with Boise State Athletics, the launching of a football scholarship to support future Broncos student athletes.

It’s his way, he says, to leave a legacy off the field before his playing career is complete.

More than 1,600 miles away in Frisco, Texas, Harry Jeanty heard about his son’s scholarship fund. He and Pamela held hands and cried.

“Dropping him at Boise, and handing him over to the staff there,” Harry says, his voice trailing and hesitating.

He’s laughing now, or maybe he’s crying again. Or both.

“We knew we couldn’t wait to see what he was going to be,” Harry continued. “He keeps amazing us every single day.”

Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X @MattHayesCFB.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Boise State's Ashton Jeanty chases Barry Sanders after nixing NIL deals