Trey Benson scouting report: Exploring Florida State RB's strengths and weaknesses

A top-500 overall recruit in 2020, Trey Benson started his career at Oregon, where he redshirted his true freshman season due to a gruesome knee injury. This hurt basically all his ligaments and he only carried the ball six times for 22 yards and a touchdown in year two.

Benson decided to transfer to FSU ahead of the 2022 season, where he touched the ball 167 times for 1,134 yards and 9 TDs, which earned him second-team All-ACC accolades. He repeated those this past year, when he basically put up the same yardage total on nine more touches, but also six extra touchdowns.

Details: 6-foot-1, 215 pounds; RS JR.

Breaking down Trey Benson's scouting report

Trey Benson #RB04 of Florida State participates in the 40-yard dash during the NFL Combine

Strengths

• Shows explosion through the hole, to rip through the second level and/or slip through arm tackles and sideway wraps.
• Looks almost like an ice-skater with the way he can press the front side at near full speed and then get his feet turned north to cut up behind a linebacker who just committed.
• Natural in his ability to alter pace and stride length on gap plays.
• Effectively incorporates shuffle steps as he takes the handoffs, such as on GT power, in order to allow pullers to get to their landmarks.
• Has a knack for slithering through tight creases and seemingly being held up, yet somehow squirting out of the pile.
• Understands really well how to allow crack-backs or pin-downs to get set up, by keeping his shoulders square as he approaches those defenders before working around them as the block is set.
• Consistently pulls his knees up high to step out of the trash in the backfield and not allow first-level defenders to trip him up as he’s crossing the line of scrimmage.
• When he has some more space, the short-area acceleration to get around and then to bend back up the field once he’s cleared defenders sitting in the hole pops on tape.
• Had an elite PFF grade on runs versus six, seven and eight-plus defenders in the box.
• Regularly bounces off contact and keeps himself alive as a runner, with the best balance of any back in this class.
• You see him wiggle himself out of crowded spaces, where you’d feel he’s done, quite a bit.
• The leg drive and fight this guy shows with the ball in his hands are commendable and the reason tacklers eventually let go regularly.
• The amount of times a defensive lineman slips off him trying to wrap him up from the side is pretty insane, kicking his toes up to avoid getting tripped up.
• Makes use of his off arm to stabilize or balance-touch to stay on his feet, as well as soften angles for himself, stiff-arm at the chest or helmet of guys in the back-seven.
• Effectively converts speed-to-power and creates yardage through contact. Averaged 4.53 yards after contact in 2022 and even at a yard lower in ’23, that’s still very impressive.
• Then when he’s closing into his top gear, Benson can efficiently veer away from pursuit defenders without losing speed and will cut inside of them at times to break through for explosive gains.
• Featured an insane 0.51 missed tackle-per-attempt rate in 2022, which was 0.1 higher than Bijan Robinson in his best season at Texas – He finished six in total missed tackles as a runner (79) despite being tied for 75th in carries (154).
• Will outflank linebackers with his speed out to the flats and can take them vertically as he wheels up the sideline.
• Has no issues fully extending for and plucking passes on the run, particularly with his body turned out to the sideline.
• Shows impressive body control to adjust for passes to his back shoulder when a defender is stacked over top of a wheel route.
• Does a great job of using the momentum of passes to carry him up the field and immediately transitioning into becoming a runner.
• Regularly able to pull his legs out of the wrap of defenders trying to chop him down in flats and turns up the sideline.
• Glides up to his landmarks and typically protects the inside shoulder in blitz pick-up.

Weaknesses

• There’s room to improve his ability to diagnose fronts pre-snap and understand how he can affect second-level defenders with the way he presses creases to attack the bubble in the front.
• Lacks the maturity to just get downhill and accelerate into contact to take what is there, particularly if the edge is closed off and he tries to get around it anyway.
• His footwork on gap schemes, when he can’t just cut and go in one motion can look a little stiff and not as well-coordinated.
• Was subbed off regularly on third downs, because he lacks violence as a pass-protector and he showed no refinement in his routes, to actually “win” before the ball was in his hands, with all swings, flats and wheels.
• Suffered a horrendous knee injury, which could affect his long-term health if arthritis comes into play.

Trey Benson's draft projection

Trey Benson #3 of the Florida State Seminoles celebrates after scoring a touchdown against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons

Trey Benson has been my RB1 since I first evaluated him in depth last summer. His explosiveness profile as a one-cut-and-go runner with the ability to clear swinging arms at him makes him a very intriguing fit in a wide-zone-based attack, while flashing a feel for pacing himself before hitting the gas on gap schemes.

There’s certainly room for improvement when it comes to more advanced footwork to deal with traffic and maturity as a decision-maker, but if you can give him a lane to accelerate through, he’s a big play waiting to happen.

What will determine how much of a featured option Trey Benson can be at the next level is the development he can show in pass-pro and how well he handles a more diverse route tree (as so much of what he did was just running to space and catching the ball on the move), where the acceleration and tackle-breaking skills can really shine.

As long as the medical reports indicate no major concerns for the future – and we did see him impress otherwise at the combine when he ran a 4.39 at 216 pounds – Benson should be the one back as a fixture in the top 50.

Trey Benson Grade: Top 50.