Prospect Profile: Travis Homer

TRAVIS HOMER -- RB, MIAMI (FL)

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Physical Measurables & Athletic Profile

At just over 5'10 and 200 pounds, former Miami Hurricane Travis Homer is built more like a Golden Tate-type slot receiver than he is like a bellcow NFL runner. That 2.86 pounds per inch he carries on his frame does not portend a heavy ground-based workload in the pros: of players drafted since 2007, only Chris Johnson, Jamaal Charles, Phillip Lindsay, and Jahvid Best have been sub-205 pound backs carrying less than 2.90 pounds per inch that have received at least 10 rushing attempts per game for their careers in the NFL (and only 15 players in that timespan have had such a body type and averaged even 5 attempts per game).

Athletically, Homer is pretty unique. While not incredibly agile, he is fast and very explosive, boasting upper and lower-body strength that are uncommon for a player his size. While his pounds per inch ratio is in the 15th-percentile of NFL RBs, his Power Score, buoyed by a strong Burst Score and a good Combine showing on the bench, is in the 38th-percentile. It's not an elite mark amongst all backs, but it's in the 85th-percentile when compared to RBs with builds similar to Homer's -- in other words, for a small back, he's a decent bet to be able to handle significant touches in the NFL. If he can operate in an offense that gets him out in space and doesn't force him to bang inside for tough yards, Travis Homer has the speed to turn the corner and the power to run over defensive backs once he gets to the second level. 

Production Profile

Homer was a precocious producer in one of the better conferences in college football, hitting age-adjusted rushing yards market share thresholds for success during both his sophomore and junior seasons (based on RBs with at least one top-24 PPR season): 

Tool from @theDude_Z with data courtesy of @pahowdy

While his final season Dominator Rating of 17.7% is less impressive than his breakout age, it is weighted down by a probably-flukey lack of TDs. While posting over 18 receptions and averaging at least 5.9 yards per carry for the second year in a row, and despite leading the Canes in rushing attempts and rushing yards, Homer reached the end zone only four times in 2018. His Dominator Rating wouldn't have been elite even with an increased TD total, and I'm not arguing that Homer is an elite prospect, but context is important. He was a good player in college.

The most exciting aspect of Homer's college production profile is his contribution as a receiver. As noted earlier, he posted at least 18 receptions in both his sophomore and junior seasons, producing a 41.5 Satellite Score in 2018 that ranks in the 77th-percentile and indicates strong potential to operate as a team's primary satellite back. That's huge for Homer's ability to find a role in the NFL: of those 15 small RBs who have received at least 5 carries per game for their careers, all but Bernard Scott, Phillip Lindsay, and Chris Johnson have had targets make up at least 20% of their total opportunities (carries and targets). To earn playing time and touches at Homer's size, even on the ground, you have to be a good contributor in the passing game, and Homer is that. 

Rushing Efficiency

Taking for granted his size, Homer's inefficiency as a runner is the biggest red flag on his profile. He averaged just 3.79 True YPC (discounting long runs to a maximum of 10 yards), and ripped off chunk runs (at least 10 yards) at a rate 2.83% lower than the rest of the Miami team. His 9.76% rate of carries that lost yards is decent for a back his size (4th out of 11 sub-205 pound RBs in this class), and he did rip off breakaway runs (20+ yards) at a rate slightly higher than the rest of his teammates, with a BRoT of 0.09%.

Travis Homer will likely not be the sort of naturally instinctive runner that is able to succeed in the NFL despite sub-par line play and surrounding talent. If he's not in a good situation or not used to his strengths, he'll struggle to be productive. He's not Ezekiel Elliott or Chris Johnson or Saquon Barkley -- but we know that. The list of RBs who need to be surrounded by good players or who need to be utilized in specific ways in order to succeed is long -- it's most RBs. I'm not trying to dismiss Homer's lack of efficiency. It's not a plus on his profile, and he's not some under-utilized savant runner who's going to create yards out of thin air. He's a strong, explosive athlete, and what he produces on the football field is a result of that athletic talent. According to Pro Football Focus, while he forced missed tackles at a fairly pedestrian rate, an impressive percentage of his yards came after contact. He's strong and he's fast, and much more of an explode-through-arm-tackles kind of guy than a quick, jitterbug scatback. A coach who sees potential in his skillset will be able to use him on draws and in the screen game and in other areas where he can pick up steam quickly and chew up yards with his speed. He doesn't fit a lot of the traditional molds for RBs, but Travis Homer has the talent to carve out a good role for himself in the NFL.

Similarity Scores and Overall Outlook

The closest comps for Travis Homer is not a group stocked with All Pro talent:

At Homer's size and with his relative lack of college productivity, his closest matches are naturally not going to be the Todd Gurleys or the Jamaal Charleses of the world (his best Path to Success match is just a 78.8%), but we're looking for upside here, not sure things.

The 3-Down Profile comparison is one that uses body type and receiving ability to find players who project to have similar carry/target splits in the NFL, and it's here that I think we find the most intuitive matches to a player like Travis Homer. He's very similar to Corey Grant: they stand within a half inch of each other at the same weight, they both boast Satellite Scores in the low-mid 40's, and they're both strong, explosive athletes, especially for their size. Grant hasn't been heavily utilized in the NFL, but he's been stuck on a Jaguars depth chart stocked with quality, all-purpose talent, with Leonard Fournette and TJ Yeldon both workhorse-sized backs with Satellite Scores in the 53rd and 81st-percentiles, respectively. Raheem Mostert is also quite similar, and he averaged 7.7 yards per carry for the 49ers this year when given an opportunity after Jerick McKinnon and Matt Breida, other small, athletic backs, went down in front of him. A successful third-down back who actually came out  of college with a Satellite Score lower than Travis Homer's is Charles Sims, a bigger player but the closest athletic match in the database. Any of these guys is a good blueprint for the type of player Homer could be in the NFL.

True to the low numbers on his Path to Success comps, the likelihood of Travis Homer becoming a fantasy stud is not great. But that's going to be baked into his ADP in dynasty. If we're searching for high-upside guys at the end of rookie drafts, I see few better options than Homer. He's an explosive athlete with good receiving ability, and that combination alone makes him a decent candidate for playing time in the NFL. He runs with more power than his size suggests, and if he's able to add 5-8 pounds on his frame once he gets into an NFL weight room, the color on that Joe Mixon comp will start looking a lot greener (such a weight boost would open him up to strong matches to Giovani Bernard, DeMarco Murray, Duke Johnson, and rookie classmate Miles Sanders as well). As of now, Travis Homer is like the pumped-up, poor man's CJ Spiller, and I see no reason why his career arc can't look something like those of guys like Matt Breida or Austin Ekeler or Chris Thompson. While currently being drafted behind the likes of Devin Singletary and Benny Snell (according to Fantasy Football Calculator), Travis Homer is as likely to be the next Phillip Lindsay, in terms of style of play as well as early-career trajectory, as any under-the-radar back in the class. Take him in the 3rd or 4th round of a rookie draft and see what happens.

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