Despite winning the 2021 Minnesota Mr. Football award, Emmett Johnson earned just one power conference offer as a prep star. It wasn’t from the Big Ten school he wanted to attend in his hometown.
Instead, Johnson is building a case as the nation’s top running back in his first full season as Nebraska’s starter, with his production exploding in 2025:
- Johnson has the most all-purpose yards among Power Four running backs (1,431) this season, including more than Notre Dame’s Jeremiyah Love.
- Johnson is the only running back in a Power Four conference with four 100-yard rushing games in conference play this season.
- His 36 receptions are the most of any Power Four running back this season.
- Johnson leads the nation in percentage of a team’s running back carries (81.9%).
Those first two facts held true even as Nebraska was on a bye this past weekend, while SEC stars Ahmad Hardy and Kewan Lacy both surpassed 220 yards with three touchdowns on the ground on Saturday.
Johnson’s also in the top five nationally in carries, rush yards, rush yards per game, and elusive plays.
All of that has contributed to Johnson earning the highest PFSN RB Impact Score in the country. Not only is his 93.5 Impact Score over three points higher than any other running back, but Johnson is the only running back with a grade of “A.”
Love and Lacy (a former Nebraska commit) are the only other running backs above a B+ (both have an A- grade).
Is Johnson the next Husker Heisman?
Johnson, the Huskers’ first 1,000-yard rusher since 2018, has been integral to a season in which Nebraska has its most regular-season wins (seven through 10 games) since 2016. With two regular-season games remaining, he’s already stamped his place in Nebraska’s proud history of running backs. Over its bye week, Nebraska launched a Heisman campaign to celebrate Johnson, which includes the following stats:
- Johnson has recorded the two best receiving seasons by a Husker running back in the last 18 years (36 receptions in 2025, 39 in 2024) and the most receiving yards in a season (300) by a Husker running back since Marlon Lucky in 2007.
- Johnson has the most rushing yards and most touchdowns in a season by a Husker since Doak Walker Award finalist Ameer Abdullah in 2014.
- Johnson is the first player in Nebraska history with 100+ rushing and 100+ receiving yards in one game (Nov. 8 at UCLA).
- Johnson is the first Husker with three straight games of 25 or more rush attempts since Ahman Green in 1997.
Nebraska last had a Heisman winner in 2001 (Eric Crouch) and a Heisman finalist in 2009 (Ndamukong Suh).
Johnson hasn’t just been steady (with at least 85 all-purpose yards in every game); he’s heating up at the right time. Including a career-high 176 rushing yards in a road win over Maryland on Oct. 11, Johnson has surpassed 120 rushing yards in four of his past five games, all of which have come in Big Ten play.
He’s hit that mark in each of his past three games. He hasn’t had fewer than 15 receiving yards in any game against a power conference foe this season. He now has seven career 100-yard rushing games after entering this season with just one, which came in Nebraska’s final home game of 2024.
The fact that Johnson’s first 100-yard game on the ground secured the Huskers’ first bowl berth since 2016 (they were previously 0-8 upon reaching five wins in a season under third-year head coach Matt Rhule) is probably no coincidence. However, there was a world in which that was his final game in Lincoln, Neb.
College football’s best-performing RB almost ran for someone else
Johnson briefly entered the transfer portal just under a year ago, a couple of weeks before Nebraska’s lead running back from 2024, Dante Dowdell, did the same. While Dowdell left for Kentucky, Johnson chose to return.
The Minneapolis native was productive as a redshirt freshman and sophomore, producing between 400 and 600 rushing yards in 2023 and 2024, before becoming Nebraska’s bellcow back in 2025. He wasn’t the clear-cut best running back on the team a year ago, given that he was second to Dowdell in carries, rushing yards, and touchdowns. Now, he may be the best running back in all of college football.
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Even in recent weeks, five-star sophomore quarterback Dylan Raiola’s injury and Rhule (who signed an extension after being connected to the opening at his alma mater, Penn State) have garnered more national attention. But Nebraska’s best player has been the running back who’s in his fourth year with the program.
The Huskers will need him to play like it with a true freshman quarterback under center for their final two games of the regular season. Nebraska visits Penn State at 7 p.m. ET Saturday, Nov. 22, for a game aired on NBC, and then hosts its rival, Iowa, on Friday, Nov. 28.
