Duke football running back Star Thomas has decided to enter the transfer portal after one season with the Duke program with one season of eligibiity remaining. Thomas transferred to Duke last offseason after spending his previous two collegiate seasons at New Mexico State.
Thomas started his career at Coffeyville Community College, therefore granting him another year of eligibility due to the Diego Pavia court case pending at the moment.
Thomas had a solid first two college seasons with the Aggies. He carried the ball over 100 times in both seasons for a combined 1,178 yards across the two campaigns to go along with 9 touchdowns.
After a great sophomore season where Thomas averaged 5.8 yards per carry, he hit the portal and landed in Durham.
He wasn't expected to have solo lead back duties with veteran Jaquez Moore also in the Duke backfield, but after Moore went down with injury in Duke's second game of the season that sidelined him for practically the rest of the year, it was Thomas' backfield.
The Blue Devils struggled to get the run game going early on in the season and it hurt Thomas' production howeverOn3.
Through the first seven weeks of the season, Thomas didn't crack 100 yards rushing in a game once and was only averaging 16 carries a contest for 56 yards per game. Then Thomas caught fire.
Over the next three games, Thomas would rush for at least 100 yards each in all three games and received 30, 17, and 22 carries in each of those games respectively.
Across that three game stretch, Thomas carried the ball 69 times for 399 rushing yards and 4 touchdowns. On top of that, the back also caught 3 passes for 69 receiving yards and a receiving touchdown in that stretch.
He came back down to earth a bit after those three games, but Thomas showed the talent he possesses.
The 6' 0" 201-pound senior finished the 2024 regular season with 213 carries for 871 yards, a 4.1 YPC average, and 7 touchdowns. He also hauled in 20 catches for another 153 yards and a touchdowns.
Thomas far-and-away led the Blue Devils in carries, rushing yards, and rushing touchdowns.
On3 currently lists Thomas as the #41-ranked running back in the portal.