Jonathan Taylor's freshman year was almost impossibly good - so good, in fact, that he's an early betting favorite to be a repeat Heisman finalist in 2018.

Despite racking up more than 2,000 total yards and 13 touchdowns last season, however, Taylor didn't quite receive the recognition his play merited. He finished sixth in Heisman voting, and fourth among running backs. Mason Rudolph received more second-place votes. Mason Rudolph!

It felt as though Taylor was a victim of several circumstances: marquee names, some career-achievement nods, Wisconsin's reputation as a running back factory, and the sense that the school's football program is a perennial bridesmaid.

If the Badgers are to advance beyond the Big Ten title game in 2018, they will need a repeat performance out of their young star (and an equally efficient passing game). Then the stodgy Heisman electorate will catapult Taylor from the fringes of the conversation into the center of the discussion about the most coveted individual prize in sports.

Best believe he's going to hold up his end of the bargain.

Taylor, after all, isn't your typical plug-and-play Wisconsin running back. He finished with 1,977 rushing yards in his freshman campaign, running with a slippery style that's easy to fall in love with.

There's no other way to say it: He just moves differently.

Taylor skips across the turf. His feet seem to move at a million miles per hour while the rest of his body remains still. He weighs his options, and when he feels it's time, he explodes, leaving a trail of defenders in his wake:

Taylor pairs those pretty feet with supreme vision and body control. He tilts and leans rather than committing himself to a move, like some plant-and-fire rushers. Defenders start biting on little twitches, following his eyes instead of his hips. Taylor leaves them in the dust before they realize their mistake:

Watch that video all the way through to the end-zone shot. Six (!) different Florida Atlantic players lock their eyes on Taylor. They light up - "I got him!" They don't. Taylor is able to shift and contort his body in unusual ways. Defenders can't get a read on him. And like that, he's gone.

Some plays are subtly gorgeous. Here, Taylor does an excellent job of allowing his blocks to develop:

Young backs have a tendency to outrun their blocks - call it giddiness. They don't allow the play concept to develop and shift into top gear before the offensive line is ready.

Not Taylor. Though he's fast, he carefully tracks everything in front of him. He moves when he needs to, and doesn't get caught up in the excitement of a potential big play. He rarely, if ever, misses the right cutback lane:

Of course, Taylor is aided and abetted by a group of moving trees up front. He routinely gets to the second level unblocked. That's a great life for a running back.

Wisconsin's offensive line isn't quite as individually talented as its reputation suggests. As a unit, though, the Badgers have the perfect blend of in-line power and mobility. The line doesn't necessarily need to win by bullying a team at the point of attack (though it's not lacking the ability to push anyone back off the ball). Its role is to distort the levels of the defensive front, stick on blocks, create alleys, and let Taylor go to work navigating through creases.

Taylor has rare vision at the line of scrimmage. He routinely conjures space despite chaos all around him:

Once he's in the open field, he's lethal. Taylor toys with a defense. He's able to power through arm tackles, dust fools with a shimmy shake, or zoom beyond a gaggle of converging defenders.

He’s happy to drop his pad level and churn out dirty yards, too. Taylor averaged 4.5 yards after contact per rush as a freshman, tied for seventh-best in the country, per Pro Football Focus.

This is not run-of-the-mill stuff; this is special. He averaged 9.2 yards per carry on third downs alone.

Paul Chryst's offense does a nice job of putting Taylor in advantageous spots. Wisconsin runs a little bit of everything. The team's playbook is littered with every zone/gap rushing concept you can imagine: outside zone, inside zone, lead zone, weak zone, and all manner of pin-pull, toss, counter, and trap plays. Anyone and everyone can pull or move. Chryst even rolled out Taylor on the odd speed sweep when he was feeling particularly rambunctious. It might not look as new age as some of the pace-and-space offenses across the country, but it's just as creative and often more versatile.

The team has a particularly frisky "Duo" package - a pair of inside double-teams, with interior linemen reading the movements of second-level defenders before deciding which one should climb up.

Duo is traditionally run with a fullback. Wisconsin, however, inserts a pair of wings, with an attached tight end tacked on for good measure, opening up all kinds of pre-snap fun and games.

The Badgers condense the formation, moving multiple eligible receivers inside the hash marks, and it starts out lopsided. A pre-snap motion shifts one wing from the strong side to the backside of the formation, a bid to out-leverage the defense and clear out the backside linebacker.

The real magic takes place inside.

Wisconsin enlists a pair of combination "deuce" blocks (center-guard, guard-tackle) in which the duo locks together - hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder - to drive a first-level defender off the ball. The linemen move in sync, downloading every defensive movement.

As they engage with the down lineman, they peek up to the second level. They read the movement of whichever defender they've identified pre-snap, typically a linebacker or safety. The lineman closest to that defender peels off the combo block and scales upfield, walling off any descending debris:

The trick is to wait for the defender to commit rather than go charging after him. It's a read block; instead of being predetermined, the blocking mechanism adjusts to the defense. Again, the goal is to distort the levels of the defensive front and create nifty creases for a back to skate through.

None of this is rocket science. It's classic power football, and that's where Taylor thrives. He wants to get vertical in a hurry so he can plunge forward in attack mode. Taylor finished 2017 with 1,335 yards after contact, the top mark in the nation. He averaged 6.3 yards on first down, according to SB Nation's Bill Connelly, despite everyone this side of Jupiter knowing Wisconsin would run the ball.

Taylor and Wisconsin are the perfect marriage of skill set and scheme. That marriage will power the Badgers to the Big Ten title game and could take them all the way to the College Football Playoff. If Wisconsin is finally able to break through, Taylor will receive a host of plaudits and accolades.

He might as well book his plane ticket to New York now.