Rashaad Penny wants to show he’ll be the next Kareem Hunt for the Seahawks

No player in the nation rushed for more yards than San Diego State’s Rashaad Penny during the 2017 college football season. Just one player had more rushing touchdowns and only one running back had more kickoff return touchdowns.

His eye-popping statistics dwarf the numbers of every other running back at the 2018 NFL Combine, including Penn State’s Saquon Barkley — the consensus top player at the position.

There aren’t size concerns for Penny, who came in at 5’11, 220 pounds Wednesday. There aren’t speed concerns either — he expects to run a 40-yard dash in the low 4.4s Friday.

But Penny will have to convince NFL teams that his 2,971 all-purpose yards in 2017 weren’t just a product of bad defense.

How do the statistics Penny tallied against San Diego State’s Mountain West Conference competition compare to the numbers put up by Barkley against the Big Ten? Or USC’s Ronald Jones against the Pac-12? Or LSU’s Derrius Guice and Auburn’s Kerryon Johnson against the SEC?

No matter what Penny does in the weeks leading up to the 2018 NFL Draft, he likely won’t be able to top Barkley on draft boards. But in a crowded class, he’ll have to convince coaches that his competition isn’t the reason for his production.

“I know people are going to [criticize the competition] so I really don’t focus on all that,” Penny said Thursday at the combine. “That’s all negative comments. I just come out here and try to prove myself still.”

Penny started his tour to prove he belongs in January when he traveled to Mobile, Ala. for the Senior Bowl. Against some of the best college talent in the nation, Penny finished the game with nine carries for 64 yards and scored a touchdown on a 73-yard reception.

“It’s nothing different when you’re playing against Power 5 — it’s all the same,” Penny said. “There’s still 11 guys on the field, still big guys, and it’s still the same football game.”

The Power 5 are the five strongest conferences in college football: SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and ACC. The next tier is the Group 5 which consists of Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Sun Belt, and American.

The last player who didn’t play in one of the Power 5 conferences to get drafted in the first two rounds of the NFL draft was Doug Martin. The former Boise State running back was taken with the No. 31 pick in 2012. In the five drafts since, 18 Power 5 running backs have gone in the first two rounds.

One of the many Group of 5 running backs to not go in the first two rounds was Toledo’s Kareem Hunt.

Despite averaging 144.5 yards from scrimmage as a senior, and rushing for 118 yards at the Senior Bowl, Hunt was a third-round pick by the Kansas City Chiefs.

It took him no time to prove that was a steal. Hunt finished his rookie season as the NFL’s rushing champ with 1,327 rushing yards and 11 total touchdowns.

“When you got a guy like Kareem Hunt, who played in the Group of 5, that gets every other Group of 5 player excited,” Penny said. “He transferred all that over to the league and most people can have trust in the Group of 5 player, so that’s definitely exciting.”

It’s not just Hunt who has proven the major conferences aren’t the only place to look for running back talent. David Johnson of the Arizona Cardinals was a third-round pick out of Northern Iowa in 2015 due mostly to the level of competition he faced in the FCS. A year later, he was a first-team All-Pro.

Penny didn’t fall to the third round like Hunt and Johnson did. Instead he earned a spot at the bottom of the first round and that’s due mostly to his production and ability. But it certainly didn’t hurt Penny that his predecessors have showed the NFL that the unheralded conferences can play too, and it landed him in Seattle with a first-round pick.