Carter Vargas holds the RB · Depth spot in California Golden Bears’s running back room. Where he sits among the room’s front-line roles:

Carter Vargas is a running back from Santa Maria, California, who played high school football at St. Joseph HS before joining UC Davis. During his 2023 junior year, he rushed 167 times for 1,321 yards and 17 touchdowns while adding 20 receptions for 171 yards across 11 games. At UC Davis, Vargas appeared in one game as a freshman in 2024, recording 27 rushing yards and one touchdown on two carries before redshirting. In his redshirt freshman season (2025), he appeared in eight games, accumulating 445 rushing yards and five rushing touchdowns on 67 attempts, while recording 177 receiving yards and two receiving touchdowns on 10 receptions.

UC Davisthrough 2025

California2026 — present