There was Joe Williams, taken in 2017’s fourth round. He never played a regular season NFL snap. There was Trey Sermon, taken in 2021’s third round. He lasted one season with the 49ers and played only sparingly. There was Ty Davis-Price, a 2022 third-round selection, who managed just 3.0 yards per carry over two seasons on the bench. And there is Isaac Guerendo, a fourth-round pick in 2024 who’s still on the team after not seeing a single carry in 2025 (Guerendo was also demoted from the kick return unit).

It’s a lousy track record full of reaches against the public draft consensus, and it looks even more dubious thanks to the fact that the 49ers have enjoyed success from running backs like Matt Breida, Jeff Wilson Jr., Elijah Mitchell, and Jordan Mason — all of whom were either sixth-round picks or undrafted free agents.

So it’s now up to Black to ensure that the 49ers break this streak of early-round whiffs at the position. To ratchet up the pressure: Christian McCaffrey’s health and freshness, one of this team’s key variables of success, might depend on it.

The superstar turns 30 in June and is coming off a career-high 413 touches in 2025. (Remarkably, Black — who turns 25 in October — is only about five years younger, even though McCaffrey is entering his 10th NFL season.) The 49ers want to ease McCaffrey’s burden, but that will require trusting a back to run proper routes, catch the football, and deliver in pass protection.

Lynch left January’s Senior Bowl, where he interviewed Black, convinced that he had a big-time candidate for the job. And perhaps it’s significant that Lynch is Black’s chief proponent, since the previously unfruitful swings at running back all seemed more driven by Shanahan — who has occasionally joked about his spotty track record drafting the position.

“He was one of my favorite interviews,” Lynch said of Black. “I learned how hungry he is, what a bell cow he was for that program.”

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Indiana went 16-0 and won the national championship in 2025. Black ran for more than 1,000 yards, averaging 3.4 yards after contact per attempt, and led the team with 10 rushing touchdowns. He spent 2024 and 2025 with Indiana, following coach Curt Cignetti there after a four-year run at James Madison.

The 49ers now have three Indiana players on their roster, the most of any college. They drafted defensive tackle CJ West and quarterback Kurtis Rourke last season, so there’s obviously a comfort with the powerhouse Cignetti has built in the Midwest.

“That’s a special program,” Lynch said, “what they’ve been able to accomplish.”

Black had only eight catches at Indiana, where the Hoosiers directed their pass game almost exclusively to wide receivers, but he proved his worth out of the backfield to the 49ers in the Senior Bowl. Black’s top-tier pass protection was also convincing. It’s rooted in his strength; Black can squat 500 pounds and bench-press 415 pounds.

“We really feel like he can help us in a big way,” Lynch said. “We talked a lot about staying true to our board, our convictions. His film speaks for itself. Really hard-running kid, rocked-up kid. You can’t help but love the kid and everything he stands for.”

The 49ers stayed true to big-school talent with their other picks on Friday. Ole Miss receiver De’Zhaun Stribling (second round, No. 33) and Texas Tech edge rusher Romello Height (third round, No. 70) will look to fill two obvious positions of need. The 49ers had traded back from No. 58 to 70 with the Cleveland Browns, moving up from the fifth to the fourth round with another pick in the process.

Like Black, the 49ers picked both Stribling and Height ahead of their consensus spots in the media and public’s pre-draft rankings — but Lynch and Shanahan seemed unbothered by notions of a reach in any three of those cases.

“Thats where we had them,” Lynch said. “At the end of the day, our entire building had conviction.”

Shanahan said he first fell in love with Stribling’s 4.36 speed and ball skills — he dropped only one pass last season — but later evaluated him as perhaps the best blocking wide receiver in this draft class. All those traits project to be instrumental for a 49ers offense that struggled to separate and block on the perimeter in 2025. Ole Miss quarterbacks posted (opens in new tab) a passer rating of 136.7 when targeting Stribling last season.

Meanwhile, Height will take the speed-rushing role of retired edge rusher Bryce Huff. He’s only 239 pounds, but the 49ers believe Height’s explosiveness and hustle — which led to huge disruption numbers in college — will carry over to passing situations in the NFL.

“We feel that Romello is at the top of this draft in terms of the effort, the relentlessness, the tenacity that he plays with,” Lynch said. “He can get after the quarterback.”

The 49ers have a “Playing With Your Hair On Fire” grade, and Shanahan said Height scored at the top of it in this draft class.

The 49ers are scheduled to pick five more times on Saturday to round out the draft. Four of those selections will come in the fourth round. Another one, which was acquired from the Dallas Cowboys for linebacker Dee Winters, sits in the fifth round.