2024 TCU Football Season Recap: Running Backs

It was tough sledding for the Horned Frogs, who struggled to run the ball throughout the season.

The TCU offense has seen a stable of running backs tote the football successfully in recent seasons. Whether it was Zach Evans, Kendre Miller, Emari Demercado or Emani Bailey, who all reached the NFL after completing their collegiate careers, TCU had run the football well entering the 2024 season. That wasn’t the case this fall, as the Horned Frogs struggled to get their ground game going despite several different players carrying the football. TCU averaged only 3.9 yards per carry this season and the team’s top three rushers in yards per carry (with a minimum of three attempts) were wide receivers, not running backs.

Despite finishing second on the team in receptions and fourth in receiving yards, wideout Savion Williams was TCU’s most efficient rusher this season. The 6-foot-5, 225-pounder became a Wildcat option over the second half of the 2024 campaign and finishing with 322 rushing yards and six touchdowns, both of which tied for the second-most on the team. Williams, who also led the Horned Frogs with an average of 6.3 yards per carry (minimum 30 carries), declared for the 2025 NFL Draft last month and will not return next season. Williams helped spark the TCU offense during the team’s wins over Utah and Texas Tech, combining for 144 yards and one touchdown on 18 carries during that two-game period.

Sophomore running back and former four-star recruit Cam Cook will also not return after opting to enter the transfer portal last month. Cook entered the season as TCU’s starting running back and led the Horned Frogs with 460 yards and nine touchdowns. However, Cook fumbled three times, losing two of them, and averaged only 3.9 yards per carry after averaging 3.6 yards per carry as a freshman in 2023. Although Cook finished the 2024 season strong, rushing for 93 yards and three scores on 19 carries, his time was split with multiple other players including Williams and veterans like Trent Battle and former Arkansas transfer Dominique Johnson, who has re-entered the portal after one season with TCU.

Johnson followed former Arkansas running backs coach Jimmy Smith, now TCU’s running backs coach, to Fort Worth, but the ex-Razorback rusher’s lone campaign led to only 63 yards and one touchdown on 18 carries. Smith took over after former Horned Frog running backs coach Anthony Jones Jr. departed for USC after the 2023 season. Another veteran transfer that didn’t pan out for TCU was senior running back Trey Sanders, who totaled just 46 yards on 13 carries in his second season with the Frogs after arriving from Alabama.

With the Horned Frogs set to lose their top two rushers, most of the attention will turn to the team’s young nucleus of ball carriers, which includes true freshmen Jeremy Payne and Nate Palmer. Payne ran for 239 yards and three touchdowns on 54 carries (third-most on the team), while Palmer totaled 30 rushing yards and a touchdown during TCU’s New Mexico Bowl win over Louisiana. TCU also signed three-star running back Jon Denman, who is the only running back in the 2025 recruiting class.

TCU will still have veterans in the room, however, as the Horned Frogs signed former UTSA running back Kevorian Barnes from the transfer portal. Despite some struggles this season, Barnes was explosive over the 2022 and 2023 seasons, rushing for 1,566 yards and 12 scores over that span. The senior from San Augustine, Texas is an early candidate to be named TCU’s starting running back next season. The Horned Frogs will also have Battle back in the fold after the redshirt junior rushed for 186 yards and two touchdowns on 44 carries this season. Overall, TCU’s offense has much to prove on the ground, as the team finished 13th in the Big 12 in rushing yards per game (113.9) despite tying for fifth in total yards per game (426.8) and taking third in points per game (33.6).