Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson Look Like Nation's Best Running Back Tandem in Combined 249-Yard Effort Against Marshall

Emeka Egbuka's thoughts are probably in line with a great many Buckeye fans after Saturday's performance by Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson.

"Probably the best college football duo that I've ever seen," Egbuka said.

Ohio State's star running back tandem was dominant against Marshall. Judkins and Henderson combined for 249 yards and four touchdowns on 20 carries, an average of 12.5 yards per attempt. The Ole Miss transfer rattled off an 86-yard touchdown run while the fourth-year Buckeye had a 40-yard scoring jaunt of his own.

Their performance in the 49-14 OSU victory showed why they may well be the best backfield duo in the nation.

"I thought TreVeyon ran hard, and I thought Quinshon and even James (Peoples), James had some good (runs)," Ryan Day said. "All three of them, I gotta give them credit, they all have special abilities, they play well off each other. They're unselfish, which is the biggest thing you can say about a bunch of guys, like they don't care who gets the credit, they're all running downhill and playing really fast."

Judkins led the way for the pairing, mostly because he got more opportunities, with 14 carries to Henderson's six. But those were some action-packed totes of the rock as Judkins finished with 173 yards and two touchdowns.

On his second carry of the day, Judkins picked up a trio of great interior blocks from center Seth McLaughlin and guards Donovan Jackson and Austin Siereveld, cut back to find a sliver of daylight and burst away from the Marshall defense to go 86 yards to the house.

Quinshon Judkins pic.twitter.com/vTEISqCZfZ
— Eleven Warriors (@11W) September 21, 2024

Judkins had two more runs that went for 15 yards or more, but his second touchdown run, a 6-yard scamper to the end zone, was probably the most emphatic of any run for the Buckeyes against the Thundering Herd. Judkins spiked 240-pound Marshall linebacker Landyn Watson into the turf with a vicious stiff arm before striding in to make it a 49-14 ballgame.

Quinshon Judkins put a Marshall defender in the dirt on this touchdown run pic.twitter.com/jirE9b5Szm
— Eleven Warriors (@11W) September 21, 2024

"I just appreciate how hard he plays, his pad level when he runs," Day said. "He's got home run ability, but you can see he gets behind his pads and runs physical. He's got a great attitude. You can coach Quinshon hard and he looks you in the eye, and he almost appreciates the fact that when you coach him hard, you're trying to get him better. And that's a great sign for somebody who hasn't been in the program for multiple years. Says a lot about who he is as a person."

Judkins is a naturally-born rugged runner. It's why he surpassed 3,000 career yards with his outing against Marshall. It's why he's a two-time first-team All-SEC performer. It's why he and Henderson are now tied for the most career touchdowns among active running backs in the country, both with 36, which is also even with Kansas' Devin Neal.

"I think the mindset of me and my teammates as a whole is to play with bad intentions," Judkins said. "And I think that's my mindset when I get the ball is to, you know, I'm going to try to – that's my job. I'm going to do my job any way. I'm going to try to get the first down. I'm going to try to score. So every time I get the ball," I'm gonna try to make the most of it."

Henderson had his say, too. His 40-yard touchdown run was his most impressive, one that saw him throw his own defender with a nasty stiff arm, shed another tackle and stroll to the end zone from there. That's not to say tight end Will Kacmarek, left tackle Josh Simmons, left guard Donovan Jackson and Egbuka didn't clear the way with fantastic blocks, because they did.

"It's amazing," Egbuka said. "We were hitting (touchdown runs) from deep so much and so often, and it's just like, with the athletes that we have in the backfield, they can really spring any run. Even if it's just an inside zone or a halfback dive, you never really know what's gonna be up. So it helps the receivers make sure we're on our Ps and Qs blocking downfield, 'cause you never know when one of those is gonna spring."

Another look at TreVeyon Hendersons stiff arm on his second touchdown of the game pic.twitter.com/VQAPBIDpiB
— Eleven Warriors (@11W) September 21, 2024

Henderson finished the day with 76 yards and two touchdowns in just six carries, an average of 12.7 yards per attempt.

Football is a team game in all phases, but there's a lot beyond the running backs that have to go into a great rushing performance by a team, and Ohio State was a great rushing team against the Herd. Its 280 rushing yards were the most the program has seen in a game since a 340-yard afternoon on the ground against Indiana on Nov. 12, 2022.

"I think it's everything," Day said. "Seth has done a great job of getting everybody on the same page. He's like having an NFL center in there. When you go into a meeting and you say something, he's got the answer, or he's going to get it fixed in-game. He's talking to those guys. It's just a calming presence, I think. Then when you add Donovan in there, he's strengthened it even more, I feel like, this week.

"Not everything's perfect, and we are going to see a lot of different competition moving forward, just once we get into conference play and down the road. we're not making any kind of judgments right now, but you go off what you see, and you see improvement there, and that's a good sign. I do think the running backs have a big part of it."

Day looped play-calling into the discussion of why the running game has found such success as well, and it's indeed been a strength this year for the Buckeyes under the coordination of Chip Kelly. There were pre-snap shifts and motions constantly to change the looks for Marshall's defense. Screen passes like Egbuka's 68-yard touchdown to open Ohio State's scoring and a handful of outside runs stretched that same defense horizontally.

"I think the mindset of me and my teammates as a whole is to play with bad intentions."– Quinshon Judkins

The Buckeyes then came back with inside zones and massive counters that gashed Marshall up the middle. The long and short of it is that they took the Thundering Herd's defensive storm cloud and dispersed it to nothing but invisible air particles.

"I think what you're seeing is an identity that's slowly getting molded here where we're explosive on the perimeter," Day said. "I don't think it was perfect, but I see our receivers blocking on the perimeter with some of these screen plays. You saw the first one to Emeka where guys are blocking and then that thing split. You see the athleticism of some of our linemen, (right tackle) Josh Fryar on the space, Seth McLaughlin did a great job on that play. And then Emeka's got the home run ability, so that spreads you out (horizontally)."

Through it all, Henderson's biggest supporter was Judkins, and Judkins' biggest supporter was Henderson. The tandem has built a close bond since Judkins arrived in Columbus this past January.

"It's the brotherhood," Judkins said. "Everybody has put blood, sweat and tears into this program. Everybody has Woke up at 5 in the morning to be in the building and train. It's because you're doing it for the person beside you."