Dallas Cowboys rookie running back Deuce Vaughn is on track to make team history

The Dallas Cowboys track and record everything Dallas Cowboys related, but not this one, perhaps because this particular detail is too small.

How short is the shortest player in Cowboys history?

They’re not sure.

He’s not officially made the 53-man roster, but if he does the Cowboys are pretty sure that Christopher Vaughn II will likely be the least-tall player in franchise history.

Chris Vaughn is better known as Deuce, or the young man who looks like Dak Prescott brought his 5th-grade brother to work day. (No, Dak isn’t his daddy).

Vaughn is the rookie from Kansas State who was drafted in the sixth round.

The best highlights from Cowboys’ training camp in Oxnard, Calif. thus far are that of the 5-foot-5 Vaughn running under the cleats of his teammates. Not literally. Just looks like it.

Vaughn makes the 5-foot-9 KaVontae Turpin look like Shaq.

At least according to one of Vaughn’s former teammates at Kansas State, once you see past the height you will see he can play.

But every single teammate of Vaughn has had to go through this learning process.

Current Kansas State quarterback Will Howard came to KSU in the same freshman class as Vaughn, in 2020. They were part of that 2020 mess of a COVID year.

“I just remember the first time I met him; he wasn’t a super-high recruit,” Howard said. Probably no pun intended.

Howard talked about his former KSU teammate last month, during Big 12 Media Days in Arlington.

“I remember the coaches were talking like, ‘Oh, this guy is going to be a stud,’” Howard said. “And then I remember meeting him, and looking down at him to shake his hand. And I was, like, ‘Man, this guy is tiny.’”

Tiny isn’t mean. Tiny is accurate.

The average American male is 5-foot-9. The average NFL player is about 6-foot-2.

“And then I watched him run routes. He ran some of the most unbelievable routes I have ever seen,” Howard said. “He was in and out of cuts, unbelievable. Catching passes out of the backfield he’s just as good, if not better, than getting a hand-off.”

Howard played with Vaughn for three seasons; in three years in Manhattan, Vaughn ran for 3,604 yards and averaged 5.5 yards per carry. He also caught 116 passes for 1,280 yards.

There are countless Instagram reels of Vaughn doing his roadrunner routine all over college fields.

There are no such reels of what he did in practice.

“Two years ago, it was during fall camp, and he put a spin move on one of our guys that just embarrassed him,” Howard said. “That’s what he would do, he just embarrasses people. He can stop on a dime, cut, and go. He was unreal.

“I never got to the point where I wasn’t impressed by it. I can count on one hand the number of times a player made a 1-on-1 tackle against him. Very, very few times we saw that happen. I didn’t take it for granted, but I’d be more surprised if he didn’t make a guy miss than if he did. If it was 1-on-1 in space, I knew he was making that guy miss.”

Despite all of the stats and highlights, it’s hard not to focus on the 5-foot-5.

You just don’t see many 5-foot-5 players in the NFL. You just don’t see that many 5-foot-5 players in pro sports.

It can happen. Doesn’t happen often.

To get around the height, their skills must be the stuff of science fiction, or something straight out of Animal Planet.

Former Kansas State running back Darren Sproles was listed as 5-foot-6, and yet he played 14 NFL seasons.

(BTW: Vaughn is well aware of the Kansas State/height connection with Sproles, and he welcomes this sort of comparison).

Houston Astros second baseman Jose Altuve is listed as 5-foot-6, and he will likely go to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Former NFL defensive back Terrell Buckley was listed as 5-foot-10. That’s a generous measure.

Despite an outstanding college career, the knock on Buckley coming out of Florida State was “5-foot-10.”

“I never thought it was a problem. They still say it to this day with little guys,” Buckley, 52, said in an interview earlier this spring when he was inducted into the Cotton Bowl Hall of Fame. “If you are making plays against 6-foot-2, or 6-foot-3 players, then you have been doing that you’re whole life.

“I never looked at it as an issue; it’s the other people who look at it like that. I don’t know when that issue went away (for Buckley). It went away because I was making plays.”

Terrell Buckley played 14 years in the NFL.

Deuce Vaughn has yet to play an official NFL down, and it’s impossible to predict if he will be a good NFL player.

At this point, it’s a safer prediction that he will make the 53-man roster. At that point, he will make Dallas Cowboys history (*).

(* They’re pretty sure of it).