Myles Gaskin has more rushing yards this season than Saquon Barkley. He also has more rushing touchdowns, total touchdowns, 100-yard games and three-touchdown games, along with a higher yards-per-carry average and higher yards-per-catch average.
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Their teams have the same overall record, same conference record and are playing in the same bowl game. Yet that bowl game — the Fiesta Bowl on Saturday, Dec. 30 — is all about Saquon Barkley, not Myles Gaskin. And while it maybe be the next losing step in a unwinnable battle for Washington to thrust their superstar running back into the national spotlight, it's an appropriate season finale for the most underrated and underappreciated running back in college football.
To be clear, I get it. Barkley is the top-10 NFL Draft prospect with a huge, chiseled frame that can return kicks, pilot commercial airliners, hurdle defenders, negotiate a peace treaty with North Korea, throw touchdowns and give defensive coordinators insomnia. He's one of the most talented players in college football history and deserves all the attention he gets.
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Gaskin arrived at Washington in 2015 as a three-star recruit from nearby O'Dea High School, just five miles south of campus. The 5-foot-10, 190-pounder set the program's freshman record for rushing yards (1,302) and rushing touchdowns (14) while averaging 5.7 yards per carry. Two years later, he enters the 2017 finale with 43 yards short of 4,000 for his career and three total touchdowns short of 50.
Gaskin has 20 100-yard games, eight 150-yard games and 19 games with at least one 20-yard carry. He's never averaged less than 5.7 yards per tote in a season, ranked outside the top 30 rushers in the FBS or — assuming he rushes for at least 18 yards vs. Penn State — rushed for fewer than 1,300 yards.
He's developed into a true all-purpose back who has 37 receptions and four receiving touchdowns the last two seasons. He ranked fifth among draft-eligible running backs this season with 11 missed tackles on just 18 receptions, according to Pro Football Focus. Gaskin has also led the Huskies to 22 wins the last two season, tying the program's two-year record, which they can break with a victory in the Fiesta Bowl.
Myles Gaskin has only once been named to the All-Pac-12 First-Team (2016) and never received a single Heisman Trophy vote. And you might be incarcerated for mentioning him in the same breath as Saquon Barkley, Nick Chubb, Bryce Love and others as one of the best and most productive running backs in college football.
Maybe that will change if the Huskies' junior puts on a show vs. the nation's 15th-best rush defense on Saturday. Or maybe not and Gaskin will return to Seattle, top the revered 5,000-yard mark, win a bunch more games and terrorize of bunch more defenses.
