Jonathan Taylor

His father played basketball for San Francisco State from 1982 to 1986.

Taylor attended Salem High School.

During his high-school football career, he amassed 4,642 rushing yards and 51 touchdowns.

As a senior, he set the New Jersey record with 2,815 rushing yards, which had been held by former Wisconsin Badgers running back Corey Clement.

In his senior season, Taylor averaged 234.6 yards a game, rushing for 35 touchdowns and scoring 37 total touchdowns.

During his senior year, he was honored with the Jim Henry Award as the high-school area player of the year for New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.

Taylor was also an accomplished performer in track and field, and he won two state titles in the 100-meter dash, his best time being 10.49 seconds.

Taylor finished his freshman season with 1,977 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns, finishing second all-time in rushing yards among FBS freshmen, behind fellow Wisconsin running back Ron Dayne (2,109 yards in 1996).

The NCAA does not include bowl-game stats for the period Dayne played, so Taylor is the official record holder for freshman rushing yards.

Taylor led the Big Ten in rushing yards, while finishing third in the FBS in rushing yards and second in the Big Ten in rushing touchdowns behind Barkley.

Jonathan Taylor (born January 19, 1999) is an American football running back for the Indianapolis Colts of the National Football League (NFL).

Taylor played high school football at Salem High School, where he set a New Jersey state rushing yards record.

He played three seasons of college football at Wisconsin, where he finished his college career as the sixth all-time rusher in the NCAA and became the first player in history to rush for more than 6,000 yards in any three-year span.

He set a new Big Ten record as he surpassed Ohio State quarterback J. T. Barrett's record of seven Big Ten Freshman of the Week awards set in 2013.

He committed to play college football at Rutgers University but later changed it to the University of Wisconsin–Madison on November 1, 2016.

247Sports rated Taylor as a three-star prospect and the 24th-highest ranked running back in the class of 2017.

After fall camp, Taylor opened his freshman year at Wisconsin in 2017 as one of the team's starting running backs alongside Bradrick Shaw and Chris James.

In his first career game against Utah State, he rushed for 87 yards over nine carries and a touchdown.

In his second game, against Florida Atlantic, he rushed for 223 yards and three touchdowns.

After Taylor ran for 249 yards against Nebraska in the fifth game of the season, he entered the Heisman Trophy conversation and was routinely listed among the top-five Heisman candidates.

In the following game, Taylor had 30 carries for 219 rushing yards and one rushing touchdown against Purdue in a 17–9 victory.

On October 21, 2017, Taylor reached the 1,000-yard rushing mark in his seventh game, matching the FBS freshman record for fewest games to reach 1,000 yards; the previous backs to accomplish this feat were Florida's Emmitt Smith (1987), San Diego State's Marshall Faulk (1991), Oklahoma's Adrian Peterson (2004), North Texas' Jamario Thomas (2004) and Wisconsin's P. J. Hill (2006).

Taylor rushed for 183 yards on 29 carries with a touchdown in Wisconsin's 45–17 win over Indiana on November 4, winning his fifth Big Ten Freshman of the Week award.

On October 30, Taylor was named a semifinalist for the Maxwell Award.

On November 17, he was named a semifinalist for the Doak Walker Award given to the top running back in the country.

Just three days later, he was named one of three Doak Walker Award finalists, along with Penn State's Saquon Barkley and Stanford's Bryce Love.

Following the final game of the season against Wisconsin's rival Minnesota, Taylor won his eighth Big Ten Freshman of the Week award.

Taylor was listed as a consensus first-team All-Big Ten pick by the Big Ten coaches and media on November 27, 2017, and was named the conference's freshman of the year.

He finished sixth in the Heisman Trophy voting.

He helped the Badgers to a school-record-setting 13 wins, an appearance in the 2017 Big Ten Championship Game, and a victory over Miami (FL) in the Orange Bowl.

Taylor's return, as well as those of many other key members of the 2017 Orange Bowl-winning Wisconsin team, led the Badgers to become ranked fourth in the preseason AP Poll, tied for the highest start in school history.

He was the seventh-ranked college football player by ESPN during the preseason.

Taylor started off the season with 18 carries for 145 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns in a 34–3 victory over Western Kentucky.

In the second game, Taylor set a career-high with 253 rushing yards, to go along with three touchdowns, in a 45–14 win over New Mexico.

He was named Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week for his performance.

Taylor finished in the top ten of Heisman Trophy voting three times, was named a unanimous first-team All-American, and was a recipient of the Doak Walker Award in both the 2018 and 2019 seasons.

Taylor entered the 2018 season as a consensus preseason All-American and was featured on watch lists for the Maxwell Award, the Doak Walker Award, and the Walter Camp Award.

Taylor was selected in the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft with the 41st pick by the Colts.

With the Colts, Taylor led the NFL in both rushing yards and touchdowns in 2021, becoming a unanimous All-Pro and Pro Bowler in the same season.

Taylor was born in Salem, New Jersey, to Elizabeth Taylor and Jonathan James.