Trey
Benson.
Trey
Benson.
Florida State· 6'0"· 216 lb· 4.39s 40
"Benson is the rare back whose best trait needs no projection: give him one clean crease and that 4.39 gear turns an ordinary zone handoff into a 70-yard answer in the open field."Pre-draft read
Benson was a downhill one-cut back who ran Florida State's zone-heavy attack from shotgun and pistol, and the trait that organizes everything is long speed at 220 pounds. He presses the front side, keeps his eyes on the second-level defender, and needs only one hard plant to get square; once he clears the line his stride opens and pursuit angles die.
The secondary trait is contact tolerance rather than creativity. He finishes falling forward and runs through arm tackles, but he is not a jitterbug who wins in a phone booth. On passing downs he is a functional check-down target and a willing if uneven blocker. The signature is the chunk run: he turned ordinary blocking into 30-yard plays more often than anyone in his class.
Outside and mid zone rushing attack with play-action bootleg carryover
Year 1: complementary explosive back on 8-12 touches with zone-run and screen packages. Ceiling: 1A in a rotation that leans on his chunk-play rate.
A gap-heavy power/duo offense that asks him to grind interior yardage between the tackles on 20 carries and to solo-block edge blitzers on obvious passing downs.
Best used behind a zone line that gives him a clean front-side read; his value drops when the design forces improvisation.
Trey Benson 2023 Regular Season Highlights
Junior-year reel showing the one-cut decisiveness and long speed on chunk runs.
Film Room: FSU RB Trey Benson vs. Louisville - All Touches
Every-touch cut-up against a physical front; good look at vision and contact balance.
Trey Benson 200-yard rushing performance (Florida State)
Career-best rushing game featuring multiple explosive breakaway runs.
Benson is a big-framed home-run back whose football identity is decisiveness plus speed, not elusiveness. He arrived at Oregon as a four-star, lost 2020 to a catastrophic knee injury that shredded his ACL, MCL and both menisci, carried six times in 2021, and transferred to Tallahassee to rebuild the whole profile.
He did rebuild it. Back-to-back 900-yard seasons in Mike Norvell's offense, 6.43 yards per carry as a sophomore and 14 rushing touchdowns as a junior, established him as the engine of an ACC championship team. The 2023 tape adds a real receiving element (20 catches) and shows a back who can carry a game plan, but it also shows tight hips in the hole, guessy interior vision on gap concepts, and pass protection that is more effort than technique.
The board loved the athletic answer. A 4.39 forty at 216 pounds validated everything the tape suggested about home-run ability, and most evaluators slotted him as the second or third back off the board in a deep class. Arizona taking him at 66 was not a reach; it was a team buying explosive complement to James Conner rather than a bell-cow replacement, and it accepted the medical file as the price of the speed.
- 01
Home-run speed
a 4.39 forty at 216 pounds is not a workout number; it shows up on tape as 40-, 50- and 70-yard runs against ACC defensive backs with angles.
- 02
Decisive one-cut runner
presses, plants once and gets vertical without wasted steps, which makes him a plug-and-play fit in outside and mid zone schemes.
- 03
Build for the workload
thick 220-pound frame with a low pad level through contact; he falls forward and rarely gets stopped by the first arm tackle.
- 04
Chunk-play production
averaged 6.43 yards per carry in 2022 and posted 14 rushing touchdowns in 2023 while sharing a crowded FSU backfield.
- 05
Growing receiving value
20 catches for 227 yards as a junior showed reliable hands on checkdowns and enough route feel to stay on the field on third down.
- 01
Interior vision
sees the front-side hole cleanly but can guess on gap and duo concepts, cutting back into traffic instead of trusting the design.
- 02
Limited make-you-miss
lateral agility and short-area quickness lag behind his top speed; he wins with pace, not with creativity in a crowded box.
- 03
Pass protection technique
willing and physical, but he ducks his head and lunges against blitzing linebackers, losing anchor and giving up the edge.
- 04
Medical file
the 2020 multi-ligament knee injury cost a full season and it remains the biggest variable on his long-term durability at the position.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.39sp50
- Vertical
- 33.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 122inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Att | Yds | TD | Rec | RecYds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Oregon | 10 | 6 | 22 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | Florida State | 13 | 154 | 990 | 9 | 13 | 144 |
| 2023 | Florida State | 13 | 156 | 906 | 14 | 20 | 227 |
| Career | — | 36 | 316 | 1918 | 24 | 33 | 371 |
Verified against cfbstats.com season pages (Oregon 2021, Florida State 2022-2023); season totals sum to career line. Redshirted 2020 after a multi-ligament knee injury.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Rotational-to-committee back whose production swings with blocking quality and passing-down usage.
Same thick frame and contact balance, with the burst to break the run once he clears the second level.
Athletic complement whose career is defined by knee injuries and limited annual touch counts.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Arizona used Benson exactly as scouted in 2024, as the change-of-pace behind James Conner rather than as an every-down back: 63 carries for 291 yards and a touchdown plus six catches, with flashes of the long speed but almost no volume. Year two was supposed to be the jump. When Conner went down with a season-ending foot injury in Week 3, Benson inherited the starting job, having already popped a 52-yard run at New Orleans in Week 1, and finished his four games with 29 carries for 160 yards and 13 catches. Then a knee injury against Seattle in Week 4 sent him to injured reserve, arthroscopic meniscus surgery followed, and Arizona let his practice window expire in December without activating him.
Two seasons in, the evaluation is unresolved rather than wrong. The speed translated and the efficiency, 5.5 yards per carry in 2025, hinted at the back the board projected, but availability has now taken two bites out of him and he has never carried a full workload. The knee history that scouts priced into the third round is the exact thing that has defined his pro career so far, and the verdict on pick 66 is still open.
Data note: Verified against cfbstats.com season pages (Oregon 2021, Florida State 2022-2023); season totals sum to career line. Redshirted 2020 after a multi-ligament knee injury.