HARRISONBURG — For NFL talent evaluators, Khalid Abdullah’s production has become impossible to ignore.
In his senior season at James Madison, the 5-foot-10, 220-pounder ran for 1,809 yards and 22 touchdowns while leading the Dukes to an FCS national championship.
“I don’t care who you do it against,” ESPN NFL draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. said on a teleconference with reporters this week. “And there are good football teams that they played that he put up enough numbers against.”
Kiper may be onto something.
Against the best rushing defenses JMU matched up with in 2016, Abdullah put together some of his top games.
Villanova (87.6 rushing yards allowed per game), North Dakota State (106.4 rushing yards allowed per game) and Youngstown State (128.9 rushing yards allowed per game) were all top 30 run defenses at the FCS level this past fall.
Abdullah tallied 101 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns at Villanova, had 180 rushing yards in the national semifinal at North Dakota State and racked up 101 rushing yards and two touchdowns en route to being named the Most Outstanding Player in the FCS title game against Youngstown State.
He also had 116 rushing yards and two touchdowns in JMU’s loss to FBS North Carolina in September.
Abdullah led all of FCS in rushing yards and rushing touchdowns. His 120 yards per game were eighth best and his 6.07 yards per carry ranked 18th. He had 11 100-yard games in total.
Whether or not the production helps Abdullah get drafted depends on how many running backs are drafted and how quickly they come off the board when the NFL Draft begins Thursday in Philadelphia with the first round.
The second and third rounds are Friday and the draft ends Saturday with Rounds 4 through 7.
“I have 30 running backs with draftable grades, with 12 of them in the first four rounds and 19 in the first five rounds, so this is a really deep class,” ESPN NFL draft analyst Todd McShay said. “And it’s not just the elite talent at the top, but I think it runs into the fourth and fifth rounds with these running backs.”
The depth of the running back class, which starts with names like Leonard Fournette out of LSU and Christian McCaffery from Stanford, could hurt Abdullah’s draft status, Kiper said.
“With running backs, you get lost in the shuffle a little bit,” Kiper said. “But if he goes undrafted and comes in as a priority free agent, and we’ve seen some pretty good backs go undrafted like Priest Holmes out of Texas. Arian Foster went undrafted and there are a lot of guys in the league that went undrafted over the last, say, 15 to 20 years at running back. I’d say he’s got a shot to push himself onto an NFL roster.”
Last week, Abdullah visited the New York Giants. He said he went to the team facility and had dinner with Giants personnel including general manager Jerry Reese and coach Ben McAdoo.
Abdullah said he thought the Giants liked his production.
“My production was a little eye-popping for them,” he said. “And the fact that I have decent speed and that I can catch the ball out of the backfield and do all the things that you need, as far as a quality back, I think that’s what they liked about me.”
