Volcano to Heisman stage: Ashton Jeanty's journey helped push Boise State into playoff

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Ashton Jeanty's athletic arc took him from the bowels of an Italian volcano to the Heisman Trophy stage in New York City.

As the son of a Navy chief petty officer, Jeanty bounced around as a kid, spending his football-formative years at a base in the farmland outside Naples, Italy. Playing teams from other bases required body-stiffening bus rides — 18 hours one way to Germany — but those early days shaped the man and player he is today as Boise State's star running back.

“We talk about adapting in life and that's what life is all about,” Jeanty said Sunday at Fiesta Bowl media day. “Dealing with change is the hardest things humans do. Living over there helped me deal with change, see a lot of different things, have a lot of different experiences."

Jeanty's journey has pushed Boise State into the College Football Playoff for the first time, a rise that started with a national attention-grabbing at the 2007 Fiesta Bowl.

The third-seeded Broncos are back in the desert, this time to face No. 6 seed Penn State in the CFP quarterfinals. The outcome of the Fiesta Bowl on New Year's Eve undoubtedly will come down to whether the Nittany Lions can stop Jeanty.

No one has been able to so far in one of the greatest seasons by a running back in college football history.

Jeanty enters the Fiesta Bowl needing 132 yards rushing to break Barry Sanders' single-season NCAA record of 2,628 that's stood since 1988. Jeanty's 2,497 yards rushing are more than 115 FBS teams and he's rushed for at least 200 yards six times, with a high of 267 against Georgia Southern in the season opener. He averages 192 yards rushing per game and led the nation with 30 touchdowns.

Jeanty was a unanimous All-American, swept the Maxwell and Doak Walker awards and finished second to Colorado's Travis Hunter in the closest Heisman Trophy vote since 2009.

“It all starts and revolves around Jeanty," Penn State coach James Franklin said. “In any other year, the guy wins the Heisman and you can make the argument he should have won it this year.”

In other words, the Nittany Lions will have their hands full — or empty, if Jeanty has his way.

The 5-foot-9, 215-pound junior is like a ballerina in a bulldog's body, leaving would-be tacklers in his wake with nearly every touch. Jeanty's speed and agility often turn the best of angles into missed tackles. His power drops defenders on the turf like bowling pins, their only view the back of Jeanty's No. 8 jersey as he heads for the next victim — or a touchdown.

Get a good hit on Jeanty and it still might not matter; he often bounces back upright like a kid's blowup bopper toy.

The combination allowed Jeanty to force an NCAA-record 143 missed tackles and gain an astonishing 1,889 yards after contact.

“The thing that just sticks out is he doesn’t go down,” Penn State defensive coordinator Tom Allen said. “I mean, he gets hit and he has tremendous balance. I just think the ability for him to break tackles is really phenomenal.”

Jeanty's jaunt to college football's biggest stage grew roots in Italy.

Born in Jacksonville, Florida, he spent part of his childhood in Virginia and played the final three years of high school football in Frisco, Texas. In between, he lived at the U.S. Navy Support Site in Gricignano Di Aversa, where the high school coach noticed his sheer power while playing basketball at lunch as a seventh grader.

Jeanty had to wait two years to play football — tackle wasn't allowed for middle schoolers — but had an immediate impact, rushing for more then 1,200 yards and 17 touchdowns the final four games after switching to running back.

Now, about that volcano.

The Navy support site doesn't have lights, so the school would sometimes use Carney Park military recreational facility inside a dormant volcano in nearby Pozzuoli.

“It was pretty cool but also kind of nerve-wracking,” Jeanty said.

Boise State's opponents know the feeling.