Woody Marks – Who He Is, What He Did as a Rookie, and What Comes Next
The Name, the Nickname, the Person
His legal name is Jo’Quavious Dequane Marks. He goes by Woody because, as a kid growing up in Atlanta, he was obsessed with Toy Story – specifically with Woody the Sheriff. The nickname stuck through Carver High School, through four years at Mississippi State, through a transfer year at USC, and into the NFL. He was born December 29, 2000, stands 5-foot-10, weighs 208 pounds, and wears number 27 for the Houston Texans.
That’s the short version. The longer version is that he arrived in the NFL as one of the most prolific receiving backs in college football history – 261 career receptions in five college seasons, a Mississippi State record that no running back had come close to – and then spent most of his rookie year being asked to do something he was never built for: carry a broken running game on volume alone.
Five Years of College, One Consistent Theme
Marks spent four seasons at Mississippi State from 2020 to 2023. He never topped 590 rushing yards in a single year there – the Bulldogs ran a scheme that leaned on him as a receiver, not a between-the-tackles back. As a true freshman in 2020, he caught 60 passes. That’s the school record for receptions by any freshman, and any running back, in a single season. Sophomore year: 83 catches. He finished his time in Starkville as the program’s all-time leader in career receptions (214) and receiving yards by a running back (1,225).
Then he transferred to USC for 2024. Lincoln Riley’s offense unlocked something different. On 198 carries – his most ever in a single season – Marks ran for 1,133 yards at 5.7 yards per carry with nine rushing touchdowns, while also catching 47 passes for 321 yards. The 1,133 yards made him USC’s first 1,000-yard rusher since Ronald Jones II in 2017. He earned second-team All-Big Ten honors. His 121.2 all-purpose yards per game ranked third in the conference.
The USC season changed his draft profile completely. He went from a receiving specialist with limited burst to a genuine dual-threat back with proven production in a Power Four conference against legitimate competition. The Texans noticed.
How He Ended Up in Houston
The Texans traded up with the Miami Dolphins to land the 116th pick in the fourth round of the 2025 NFL Draft. They sent a sixth-round pick and future considerations to move up. With that pick, they took Marks – the second USC player they drafted that year, alongside defensive back Jaylin Smith in the third round.
Head coach DeMeco Ryans praised him publicly after the draft, which is not something Ryans does as a formality. The expectation at the time was that Marks would work as a change-of-pace option behind Joe Mixon and fill a third-down role early in his career. That plan lasted approximately zero games.
Mixon suffered a foot injury before the season and never played in 2025. Nick Chubb, signed as a free agent backup, showed quickly that he had little left physically. By the time Week 4 arrived, Marks was seeing 41 offensive snaps against the Tennessee Titans – more than five times what he’d played in Week 1 against the Rams.
What His Rookie Season Actually Looked Like
The full-season line: 196 carries, 703 rushing yards, 2 rushing touchdowns, 24 receptions on 36 targets, 208 receiving yards, 3 receiving touchdowns. 911 total scrimmage yards in 16 games. Zero fumbles lost all regular season.
His 3.6 yards per carry ranked 50th out of 55 qualified running backs. PFF graded him 68.8 overall – 40th at the position. Those are not numbers that inspire confidence. Pro Football Network’s dynasty analyst put it plainly in February 2026: Marks had only six games of double-digit fantasy points all season, never topped 16.1 points after his Week 4 explosion, and his 4.1 yards per touch ranked 50th among backs.
What makes the efficiency numbers hard to interpret straightforwardly: the Texans ranked 27th in Rushing DVOA in 2024 and came into 2025 with an offensive line that had been rebuilt from scratch. Marks wasn’t running behind a functional unit. He was running behind a group that was still figuring itself out, with no other viable backfield options forcing defensive coordinators to account for anything else. A 3.6 YPC average under those conditions isn’t the same data point as a 3.6 YPC average behind a healthy line with a genuine threat in the backfield.
Still – and this matters – he did force 27 missed tackles as a runner and averaged 2.6 yards after contact per attempt. He’s not getting knocked down at the line of scrimmage. He’s making guys miss, gaining yards after first contact, just not consistently breaking the big ones on standard early-down carries.
The Games That Tell the Actual Story
Week 4 against the Titans: 119 scrimmage yards, two touchdowns, career highs in carries (17), touches (21), snaps (41), rushing yards (69), and receiving yards (50). That’s the game that put him on fantasy radars. C.J. Stroud, after the game: “Really elusive, really crafty. I thought today we used him in that light – spread him out, gave him some familiarity running the ball and some plays he’s run before.”
Week 8 produced another 111-yard game. Against San Francisco, he turned a check-down from Stroud into a 50-yard gain after the catch – the kind of play that requires vision and acceleration in space, not just volume. Then the playoffs. Against Pittsburgh in the Wild Card round, Marks ran 19 times for 112 yards and a touchdown in a 30-6 blowout. It was the first 100-yard game of his professional career, and he picked the right moment for it.
He also took a shoulder hit during the Divisional round against New England, left briefly, and returned. His injury history going into 2026 is essentially clean aside from that exit.
What Kind of Running Back He Actually Is
Ryans called him “shifty” and contrasted him directly with Chubb’s power style. That’s accurate. Marks isn’t built to run between the tackles on early-down power plays. He’s built to work in space – screens, angle routes, swing passes, perimeter runs on outside zone concepts. His 56-game collegiate streak of at least one reception isn’t a coincidence or a system artifact. He has natural hands, routes, and feel for finding soft spots in coverage that most running backs don’t develop.
The contradiction in his rookie year: a player with that receiving profile caught only 24 passes on 36 targets. A 6.9% target share. That’s a number that doesn’t square with what the Texans said they drafted him for, and it doesn’t square with what he showed in college. Whether that was scheme, circumstance, or something else in the offense’s priorities isn’t entirely clear – though the most obvious explanation is that a team whose starting running back never played leaned on whatever Marks could give them between the tackles rather than deploying him optimally.
The David Montgomery Trade and What It Changes
In March 2026, the Texans sent offensive lineman Juice Scruggs, a 2026 fourth-round pick, and a 2027 seventh-round pick to Detroit for David Montgomery. That’s a meaningful price for a 29-year-old back with 1,477 career carries on his body – and it’s an unambiguous signal about what Houston wants from its ground game. Montgomery is a power back who runs with his pads low and grinds through contact. He is everything Marks is not, and that’s the point.
Marks is now a backup. His dynasty value has dropped accordingly, and the analysts saying so aren’t wrong. But there’s a version of 2026 where this actually works for him. If Montgomery handles early downs and short yardage, Marks gets deployed in third-down and two-minute situations – exactly the role his skills are built for. His receiving production, which was badly underutilized in 2025, could jump from 24 catches to something in the 45-55 range if the Texans actually use him the way they said they drafted him.
Montgomery is also 29 and coming off a season that was his first fully healthy year in three. The Texans’ recent history with veteran running backs – Mixon (foot), Chubb (physical decline), Dameon Pierce (2022 to fantasy irrelevance in 18 months) – is not encouraging for the Montgomery investment. If he gets hurt or falls off, Marks is next in line with two years of team control remaining.
The Dynasty Question: Buy, Hold, or Move On
His price is at its floor right now. RotoBaller’s Patrick McGrath wrote in May 2026 that Marks’ long-term dynasty success will likely come down to his pass-catching role – and that’s correct. The Gridiron Experts take is also defensible: Montgomery is old, the Texans have a recent history of backfield chaos, and a player who led his college conference in consecutive games with a reception doesn’t forget how to catch a football.
The honest counterargument – and Pro Football Network made it clearly – is that Marks’ efficiency as a runner in 2025 wasn’t just below average, it was near the bottom of the league, and nothing about his physical profile suggests he’ll suddenly become a different runner. He forced missed tackles and showed burst in space. He did not show the ability to consistently gain positive yards when defenses knew he was getting the ball.
In dynasty, the question is whether his ceiling is a productive complementary back with 50 catches and 500 yards on the ground, or a player who never quite gets enough of either to matter in fantasy scoring. The Texans’ backfield history leans toward the second outcome. But the receiving upside – if unlocked – is real. He’s a hold in most dynasty formats, a buy if his price is low enough, and a sell only if you’ve stopped believing the offense will ever use him as a receiver.
His Numbers, Cleanly Laid Out
Five college seasons, 57 games, 44 starts. 608 carries, 3,016 rushing yards (5.0 average), 31 rushing touchdowns. 261 receptions, 1,546 receiving yards, 5 receiving touchdowns. NFL rookie season 2025: 196 carries, 703 rushing yards (3.6 average), 2 rushing touchdowns, 24 receptions, 208 receiving yards, 3 receiving touchdowns, 911 scrimmage yards, 27 forced missed tackles, zero fumbles lost.
PFF grade 2025: 68.8 overall (40th of 55 qualified backs). Rushing grade: 69.6 (46th of 55). Draft: Round 4, Pick 116, 2025 NFL Draft, Houston Texans. Contract: four years, rookie deal. Jersey: number 27. Age as of the 2026 season: 25.
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