His analytics say the same, according to Cory Yates, a Fort Worth Western Hills graduate and co-founder of Reel Analytics, a sports tech and data company that analyzes video to measure athleticism so coaches and scouts can evaluate talent more accurately.
Per Yates, the intersection of film and analytics is the white space Reel Analytics pioneered by unlocking new athleticism data to derive its groundbreaking In-Game Athleticism (IGA) Score.
Reel Analytics, which used by a number of colleges in recruiting, including TCU, measures space position players like running backs, receivers, tight ends, linebackers and defensive backs. It give them a proprietary IGA Score derived from position-specific athleticism metrics extracted by video tracking technology. Each metric is weighted, contextualized by percentile rankings, and scored.
And not only was Vaughn’s score of 96.7 tops among all Cowboys drafted players, it was third among running backs, behind only Bijan Robinson (98.3) and Tank Bigsby (97.2), who were drafted in the first and third rounds by the Atlanta Falcons and Jacksonville Jaguars, respectively.
He was four spots ahead of Jahmyr Gibbs (92.1), who picked in the first round by the Detroit Lions.
“Deuce Vaughn is unique in two ways,” Yates said. “First, he has elite change of direction. His average change of direction time is under 0.3 seconds which is top 1% of 3,900 running backs in our database and the best in the 2023 draft class. Second, Vaughn has high-end breakaway speed. We clocked him at a max speed of nearly 22 mph in week 9 vs Oklahoma State.”