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Stanford junior running back Nathaniel Peat enters transfer portal

Per Rivals’ transfer portal tracker, Stanford junior running back Nathaniel Peat has entered the transfer portal. Peat rushed for 665 yards and 4 touchdowns in his Stanford career on 117 attempts. He also totaled 106 receiving yards on 16 receptions, making it a total of 771 yards from scrimmage. As a kick returner, Peat totaled 1126 yards on 46 returns, though he never took one to the house for a touchdown.

This past season, Peat rushed for 404 yards and 3 touchdowns on 79 attempts while having 11 receptions for 63 yards, totaling 467 yards from scrimmage. In the return game, he totaled 663 yards on 27 returns.

Peat is really close with fellow junior running back Austin Jones, so in that vein, this news comes as a surprise. After having a disappointing season, you’d think Peat would like to have a strong senior year at Stanford alongside his close friend in the backfield. They roomed together and always spoke highly of each other when given the opportunity.

From a pure football standpoint, one of the big things to take from this is that this now means sophomore running back E.J. Smith is going to move into the number two running back spot behind Austin Jones. Smith was a 4-star running back coming out of high school and ranked 74th overall in the nation, so there was a lot of hype surrounding him when he committed to Stanford. With Peat exiting stage left, this opens the door for Smith to have a larger share of the pie in terms of touches and have a more expanded role.

As far as how significant Peat’s departure is for Stanford, it’s hard to say. A lot of it comes down to how well Smith does next year and how healthy the running back room remains. If Austin Jones and E.J. Smith take their games up a notch and if sophomore running back Casey Filkins steps up in his junior year as well, Stanford will have three solid running backs in the backfield. Incoming freshman Arlen Harris, Jr. will add depth in the running back room as well. So, this could end up not being a huge loss for Stanford if those guys all live up to their potential.

Nathaniel Peat was a solid running back at Stanford who showed flashes of brilliance, but he lacked consistency and when given the chance to be the number one back, he didn’t have the type of impact that Stanford was hoping he’d have. At the same time, having him back would add more depth and injuries were an issue for them last year. So in that sense, Stanford certainly would like to have him back. It’ll be interesting to see where Peat lands, what type of impact he makes at his new program, and how Stanford’s running back room does without him.

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