Ollie Gordon II: From Fort Worth Phenom to Miami Dolphins Running Back
Ollie Gordon II rushed for 1,732 yards in 2023, led every running back in the country, won the Doak Walker Award, and was being talked about as a first-round pick. Eighteen months later he was selected 179th overall. That gap – between what he was and where he went – is the whole story.
Early Life and High School Career
Gordon was born January 15, 2004, in Fort Worth, Texas, and grew up in Euless – a mid-cities suburb wedged between Dallas and Fort Worth that doesn’t produce many Doak Walker Award winners. He attended Trinity High School, where he was named the Fort Worth Star-Telegram 2020 Male High School Athlete of the Year. He committed to Oklahoma State in February 2022 as a four-star recruit. His mother is Tarona Smith.
Oklahoma State: The 2022 Freshman Year Nobody Noticed
Gordon started one game as a true freshman. His season totals were modest – 62 carries, four touchdowns, numbers that didn’t raise any alarms in either direction. Then in the final game of the year, against West Virginia, he went for 136 yards. PFF named him True Freshman of the Week for that performance. It was enough of a signal that the coaching staff knew what they had. The rest of the country didn’t find out until 2023.
2023: Best College Running Back in the Country
The numbers from his sophomore year are hard to contextualize without looking at them twice. Gordon carried the ball 272 times for 1,732 yards – tops in the nation – and scored 21 rushing touchdowns. That’s an average of nearly 6.4 yards per carry across a full Big 12 schedule. He finished with nine games over 100 yards. Nine.
The two-game stretch against West Virginia and Cincinnati in October 2023 was genuinely absurd – 553 combined rushing yards across back-to-back weekends. West Virginia and Cincinnati were not bad defenses. He ran through both of them like they were running the wrong gap assignments.
The awards came in bunches: Doak Walker Award (given to the nation’s best running back), unanimous All-American, Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year as voted by the coaches, and a top-10 Heisman finish. OSU reached the Big 12 Championship for the second time in three years. Gordon finished his sophomore season with 22 total touchdowns when you count receptions.
First-round projections followed. Multiple mock drafts had him going in the top 30. At 6’2″ and 225 pounds with that kind of production, the logic wasn’t hard to follow.
2024: Injuries, a DUI, and a Season That Went Sideways
He came into 2024 as the Big 12’s preseason Offensive Player of the Year. That’s how high the expectations were. What followed was one of the more complete collapses of a projected high pick in recent memory – and it wasn’t any single thing that caused it.
On June 30, 2024, Gordon was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. That went into every team’s scouting file. The on-field results compounded it: lower body injuries slowed him throughout the season, OSU’s offense regressed as a unit, and his numbers fell to 880 yards and 13 touchdowns on far fewer opportunities. His yards-per-carry average dropped. His draft stock fell from the late first round to Day 3 conversations almost immediately.
He still finished his Oklahoma State career with 2,920 rushing yards and 36 touchdowns. He was also named Academic All-Big 12 in 2024 – that detail gets buried under the DUI coverage, but it’s there. In December 2024, he declared for the 2025 NFL Draft.
What Kind of Runner He Actually Is
At 6’2″ and 225 pounds, Gordon runs like someone who knows defenders don’t want to tackle him. He presses gaps, builds speed through contact rather than avoiding it, and is genuinely difficult to bring down in the open field for a back his size. Pro Football Network’s Ian Cummings described him as having “high-level fluidity, creative instincts, spatial IQ, and vision” – which is the polite way of saying he sees the field better than most backs his size have any right to.
His pass protection is legitimately good, not just “acceptable for a college back.” He’s alert to blitzes, positions well, and is willing. That matters for NFL coaches deciding who stays on the field on third down.
The legitimate knock: he is scheme-dependent in a real way. Gordon came out of an Oklahoma State system built around gap and power concepts. Zone-run schemes – where backs need to read the backside and make immediate cuts – are a different ask. He can work in zone, but it’s not where he’s at his best. Multiple scouts noted he’ll need a good offensive line to produce at his ceiling. That’s true of most backs, but it’s more true of Gordon than the average prospect.
The Najee Harris comparison is the one that comes up most often, and it’s not wrong. Big back, power runner, better receiver than people expect, dependent on scheme fit. Harris was a first-round pick who had uneven early production behind a mediocre Pittsburgh line. Gordon went in the sixth round. The draft capital difference tells you something about how the DUI and the 2024 regression affected his evaluation – but not necessarily about the player himself.
The 33rd Team’s scouting report called him “a violent runner in all ways, from how he presses gaps to how he attacks defenders on the second level to how he handles his duties in pass protection.” Pro Football Focus projected him as a potential short-yardage and goal-line specialist in his early NFL years, with three-down upside in the right scheme.
College Career Stats
| Season | Games | Carries | Yards | Avg | Rush TD | Rec | Rec Yds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 13 | 62 | ~350 | ~5.6 | 4 | – | – |
| 2023 | 14 | 272 | 1,732 | 6.4 | 21 | – | – |
| 2024 | 11 | ~175 | 880 | 5.0 | 13 | – | – |
| Total | 38 | ~509 | 2,920 | – | 36+ | – | – |
The 2025 NFL Draft: How He Landed in Miami
The pick itself moved through three teams before Gordon was selected. The Cleveland Browns held the 179th pick, traded it to the Houston Texans as part of a larger deal, and the Texans moved it to Miami in exchange for the Dolphins’ 4th-round pick (116th overall, Woody Marks) and a 7th-rounder. The Dolphins signed him officially on May 9, 2025.
Going sixth round with a resume that includes leading the nation in rushing and winning the Doak Walker Award is unusual. But the 2025 running back class was deep – Ashton Jeanty, Omarion Hampton, TreVeyon Henderson, Quinshon Judkins, Kaleb Johnson, and Cameron Skattebo were all taken before him – and Gordon’s 2024 tape gave evaluators real reasons to hesitate. Six rounds is where hesitation lands.
Awards and Honors
- Fort Worth Star-Telegram 2020 Male High School Athlete of the Year
- PFF True Freshman of the Week – 2022 (West Virginia game)
- 2023 Doak Walker Award (nation’s top running back)
- 2023 Unanimous All-American
- 2023 Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year (Coaches’ vote)
- 2023 Heisman Trophy – top 10 finalist
- 2024 Academic All-Big 12
Rookie Year With the Dolphins: 2025 NFL Season
Gordon played in all 17 games during his rookie year. His stat line – 70 carries, 199 yards, 3 rushing touchdowns, 2.8 yards per carry – looks thin until you understand his role. He was never going to be the featured back behind De’Von Achane. His job was short yardage, goal-line, and pass protection when the Dolphins needed to grind out a possession.
His first career touchdown came on a 2-yard rush against the Buffalo Bills. He also caught a 20-yard TD pass from Tua Tagovailoa at some point in the season, which confirms the receiving ability scouts identified in college wasn’t just college-level receiving ability. His preseason showed he could handle increased volume – 50 yards on 10 carries with 9 receiving yards against Detroit – but the regular season role stayed limited.
Three touchdowns from 70 carries as a sixth-round rookie in a supporting role is fine. It’s not explosive, it’s not the Doak Walker version of Ollie Gordon. But for a player whose draft stock fell as far as his did, making the 53-man roster and contributing in all 17 games is its own answer to some of the questions 2024 raised.
NFL Career Stats
| Season | Team | G | Car | Yds | Avg | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Miami Dolphins | 17 | 70 | 199 | 2.8 | 3 |
Where He Goes From Here
Gordon’s roster spot heading into 2026 is not locked up. RotoBaller reported in April 2026 that he’s fighting for a place on the depth chart, which is accurate – the Dolphins have De’Von Achane as their clear featured back, and the backup role is contested. His dynasty fantasy value is described as rising, particularly with organizational changes in Miami creating some downstream opportunity.
The honest assessment: Gordon is a player who needs a gap-scheme offense, a functional offensive line, and a role that lets him work in short-yardage situations where his size becomes an advantage rather than a liability. He had all three conditions in 2023 and was the best running back in the country. Whether he gets those conditions consistently in the NFL is the variable nobody can answer yet. He’s 22 years old. The 2025 season wasn’t the ceiling or the floor – it was just what a sixth-round rookie with his profile looks like in Year One.
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