Colts Think Seth McGowan Brings Toughness To Backfield

A football player needing to visit a hospital due to injury during a game isn’t (unfortunately) the most foreign occurrence.

McGowan showed toughness by returning to game after shoulder injury required hospital visit.
Colts see McGowan as a physical, 'four-minute' back to complement star RB Jonathan Taylor.
Colts have openings in backfield depth chart behind Taylor after losing key reserves.

Florida v Kentucky — Source: Michael Hickey / Getty

Colts Think Seth McGowan Brings Toughness To Backfield

INDIANAPOLIS – A football player needing to visit a hospital due to injury during a game isn’t (unfortunately) the most foreign occurrence.

But a football player needing to go to a hospital during a game, and then returning to play in that same game is pretty darn rare.

However, that’s what occurred this past year for Kentucky running back Seth McGowan.

In a Week 6 game against Texas last season, McGown injured his shoulder to the point where he needed an X-ray to assess the damage.

With a hospital right down the street from Kroger Field in Lexington, the Wildcats medical staff was able to evaluate McGowan quickly enough for the running back to still get back in time to play in the game.

Toughness.

That was quite evident in how McGowan wanted to return to such a big game.

And that’s fitting to the playing style McGowan brings to the running back position.

“He adds a real physical element at running back,” Chris Ballard says of the Colts 7^th round pick.

At 211 pounds, McGowan walks into a Colts backfield with hardly anything locked in on the depth chart behind Jonathan Taylor.

Gone are Tyler Goodson (Falcons) and Ameer Abdullah (Jaguars), who were the two main backups to Taylor, who was busy leading the NFL in carries last season.

D.J. Giddens was a 5^th round pick of the Colts in 2025, but a lack of special teams presence limited him to just 9 games played and 26 carries in his rookie season.

Ulysses Bentley IV, an undrafted free agent from last year, is another name in the room. Although, he had just one carry in his entire rookie campaign.

All of that means the Colts have wide open roles to be defined behind Taylor, no matter the nature of those duties.

The Colts think McGowan can provide something on special teams and be a “4-minute type of back” with more of that power running style.

A 2021 arrest for larceny led McGowan down a path of attending 5 different colleges.

Ballard and the Colts are adamant though in their vetting process, with some key connections to the schools McGowan attended, that those character questions have been answered

“I’m a second chance guy,” Ballard says. “I mean…how long are you going to keep punishing him for it?”

“He’s had a good track record (since). Feel good about who he is. You learn your lesson. You make a mistake, you pay the price for it, and then you move on.”