Kaleb Johnson College Career Explosive Play Runs Contextualization

Now that the Pittsburgh Steelers have selected their 2025 draft class, we will be breaking down those seven players more in-depth as the offseason progresses. Personally, I love to do contextualization of players in niche areas. Today, I will present one on RB Kaleb Johnson, the Steelers’ third-round selection this year out of Iowa. Specifically, this contextualization will revolve around Johnson’s college career rushing attempts of 20 yards or longer.

For starters, the table at the bottom of this post includes the play-by-play data of all 32 explosive play rushes that Johnson recorded during his college career at Iowa, according to Pro Football Focus charting. That data includes yards after first contact, broken tackles, perceived running scheme, box counts, and personnel groupings. Each play is linked to a video so that anyone reading this post can view it for themselves.

Special thanks to Pro Football Focus and Sports Info Solutions for some of the data used in this post, as it made it much easier to compile.

Now for some compiled data from this play-by-play contextualization study on Johnson’s college career explosive runs of 20 yards or longer.

In total, Johnson registered 32 explosive runs of 20 yards or longer during his college career, which was 6.3 percent of his total number of carries. That 6.3 percentage ranked Johnson near the top when compared to several other running backs in the 2025 draft class. I compiled that list of explosive run rates before the draft; you can see them below.

For his college career, Johnson registered 32 explosive runs of 20 yards or longer, and 21 of them came during his 2024 season at Iowa. In short, Johnson registered an explosive run rate of 8.75 percent in 2024 on his 240 total carries. That’s obviously an outstanding percentage rate for one season.

Johnson’s 32 explosive runs in college equated to 1,202 yards, which means he averaged 37.6 yards per home run, if you will. That’s also outstanding. Nine of his 32 explosive runs went for 40 yards or longer. 15 of those 32 explosive runs by Johnson during his college career ended with him scoring a touchdown. 22 of his 32 explosive runs came against Big 10 teams to boot.

Since the Steelers selected him this past Friday, Johnson has been praised by the Steelers coaching staff and front office members for his ability to get better as games progress, notably in the fourth quarter of contests. Eight of his explosive runs in college, a quarter of them, came in the fourth quarter of games. Six of those eight fourth-quarter explosive runs included him scoring. 14 of his 32-career college explosive runs came in the first half of games, leaving 10 remaining ones that came in the third quarter of contests.

19 of Johnson’s explosive runs in college came on first down and 10 plays—eight of those ended up being touchdowns.

When it comes to yards after first contact on these 32 explosive runs, Johnson, according to SIS, averaged 15.6 yards per attempt. He also broke 13 tackles on these 32 runs and forced several missed tackles as well.

When it comes to box counts on these 32 runs by Johnson during his college career, 18 of them came against box counts of seven or more players. Eight of them came against box counts of eight or more players.

This Kaleb Johnson explosive run contextualization also revealed other fruitful information about run schemes and personnel groupings.

Proceeding, 26 of Kaleb Johnson’s 32 college career explosive play runs featured heavy personnel on the field, meaning at least two tight ends or a fullback plus at least one tight end. That bodes well for Johnson landing in Pittsburgh with offensive coordinator Arthur Smith, who loves to use heavy personnel groupings. You’ll see a lot of condensed formations using heavy personnel when you watch these 32 explosive runs by Johnson. All of that noted, Johnson did have six explosive runs in college out of 11 personnel groupings. Five of those resulted in touchdowns.

As far as run schemes go in these 32 explosive runs, they were extremely broad, yet another positive for Kaleb Johnson. The list of those run schemes from the 32 plays used for this study is broken down below. In short, Johnson had explosive run success in all running schemes during his career at Iowa, and that should be exciting with him now landing in Pittsburgh.

8 – inside zone
7 – toss
5 – counter
4 – outside zone
2 – stretch
2 – sweep
2 – power
2 – fullback lead

During his time at Iowa, Kaleb Johnson ran behind well-coached offensive lines that were coached by George Barnett. Even so, Johnson did his fair share on many of these 32 explosive runs. You should notice his patience, recognition, and bursts on quite a few of these 32 explosive runs.

As for my main takeaways from this big run contextualization, first, it’s exciting to see so many of them on tape, especially in the 2024 season. While Johnson’s unlikely to register an 8 percent explosive run rate at the NFL level, he should be able to register more than his fair share of them if the Steelers’ offensive linemen and tight ends do their collective parts more consistently. He can run inside and outside, against stacked boxes, and in all schemes and personnel groupings. Smith’s mid- and wide-zone running attack out of heavy personnel groupings should fit Johnson like a glove.

I will end this post by stating the obvious: This contextualization revolves around highlight runs and those only. Even so, it is important to learn how all of those runs happened, and we have now accomplished that goal.

With this explosive run play contextualization now out of the way, I plan on doing a few more related to other aspects of Kaleb Johnson’s game. In future contextualizations, we’ll look at his pass protection, tackles for loss, and even his targets and catches from his college career.

In the comments at the bottom of this post, let me know what you think about these 32 explosive runs that Kaleb Johnson had during his college career at Iowa.