Anthony
Mcfarland Jr..
Anthony
Mcfarland Jr..
Maryland· 5'8"· 208 lb· 4.44s 40
"A redshirt freshman who ran for 298 yards against Ohio State and 1,034 at 7.89 a carry, then spent his last year on a bad ankle — pure speed with a thin frame."Pre-draft read
McFarland is a pure speed back. He is a one-cut runner who presses the hole, plants and is instantly at full stride, and the burst through the second level is elite — he broke Maryland's freshman rushing record with 1,034 yards at 7.89 per carry, fifth best in the country.
He is a home-run threat rather than a volume back. He wants a defined crease and vertical space, and he can turn one missed fit into six points from anywhere on the field. Between the tackles he lacks the mass to move a pile, and contact balance is not part of his game. He has soft hands out of the backfield and matchup value against linebackers. The signature is the top gear, a complementary change-of-pace back whose value is the explosive play.
A zone-running offense that gets him to the edge with defined creases and uses him as the change-of-pace complement to a heavier early-down back.
Year 1 third-down and gadget back plus kick returner, with a ceiling as the explosive half of a committee that produces chunk plays and receiving yardage.
A gap-scheme, two-back power offense that wants its runner to grind out yardage between the tackles and finish through contact on early downs.
Top Plays: Anthony McFarland Highlights vs. Ohio State
The 298-yard game that made him a national name, including the 81- and 75-yard touchdown runs.
#10: Maryland RB Anthony McFarland vs. Ohio State - Top 30 B1G Performances of 2018
Conference network breakdown of his signature freshman performance.
#19 Maryland RB Anthony McFarland - Top 30 Returning B1G Players of 2019
Pre-2019 scouting look at his speed and one-cut running style.
McFarland is a two-year producer with one of the most explosive individual seasons in recent Big Ten memory. A Hyattsville, Maryland, product who stayed home, he redshirted, then broke out as a redshirt freshman in 2018 with 1,034 rushing yards on 131 carries, four touchdowns and seven catches for 73 yards.
That season was built on a stretch nobody else in the program had matched. He ran for 220 yards against Indiana and then 298 against Ohio State the next week, eight shy of the school single-game record, becoming the first Terrapin with consecutive 200-yard games since 1979 and the first freshman in program history with four 100-yard games. He was second-team All-Big Ten and a Freshman All-American. His 2019 was different: an ankle injury suffered in week two never fully healed, and he finished with 114 carries for 614 yards and eight touchdowns, playing hurt all season and missing only one game.
He left with 1,648 rushing yards in two seasons, twenty-first in school history. The board saw a change-of-pace back with rare speed, a thin frame and an injury-compromised final year. Pittsburgh, which wanted a complement to its power back and whose new quarterbacks coach had been his offensive coordinator in 2018, took him at 124.
- 01
Elite long speed
Reaches top gear in a stride and outruns pursuit angles, which is how he averaged 7.89 yards per carry as a redshirt freshman.
- 02
Explosive-play production
Posted back-to-back 200-yard games including a 298-yard afternoon against Ohio State, the kind of output that travels.
- 03
One-cut decisiveness
Presses the hole and plants without hesitation, a natural fit for zone and outside-zone run concepts.
- 04
Receiving value
Catches cleanly out of the backfield and creates a speed mismatch against linebackers in space.
- 05
Return upside
The straight-line burst gives him immediate kick-return value for a roster that needs day-three snaps somewhere.
- 01
Slight frame
Lacks the mass to break tackles inside, and contact balance is the clearest missing piece of his profile.
- 02
Injury-shortened final year
An ankle injury from week two of 2019 never healed and dragged his senior production down all season.
- 03
Two seasons of tape
A redshirt plus one healthy year means evaluators were projecting from a very small body of work.
- 04
Needs defined creases
Production falls off sharply when the first read is muddied and he has to create for himself in tight quarters.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.44sp50
- Vertical
- 29.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 116inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Att | Yds | TD | Rec | RecYds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Maryland | — | 131 | 1034 | 4 | 7 | 73 |
| 2019 | Maryland | — | 114 | 614 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| Career | — | — | 245 | 1648 | 12 | 0 | 0 |
He redshirted in 2017 and played two seasons. The 2018 line comes from official Maryland and conference releases and the 2019 line from the Steelers draft release; his career rushing total of 1,648 yards matches the sum of the two seasons. His 2019 receiving numbers were not verified and are left empty rather than assumed.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A lightly built speed complement whose carries stay limited and whose value shows on third down and special teams.
The ceiling: a one-cut speed back who becomes the lead runner in a zone scheme built to spring him.
A back whose college explosion never translates because he needs clean creases the NFL never gives him.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
He never got a real runway. McFarland debuted in week three of 2020 with six carries for 42 yards against Houston and looked like he belonged, then faded as the season went on, finishing his rookie year with 33 carries for 113 yards and six catches for 54 yards in eleven games. Pittsburgh's run game collapsed around him that year, and the coaching staff leaned on other backs.
He played two games in 2021 with three carries, spent most of his time on the practice squad, played one game in 2022 with six carries for 30 yards, and appeared in three games in 2023 mostly as a kick returner, taking six returns for 164 yards. That was the end of it. His career totals across four seasons are seventeen games, 42 carries for 146 yards, no touchdowns, eleven catches for 87 yards and nine kick returns. In hindsight the profile did exactly what the thin part of his scouting report warned about: an explosive, lightly built complementary back needs a defined role and a healthy offense to matter, and he never found either one.