Kenny Dillingham Open to Using Numerous Oregon Running Backs in 2022 Rotation

As has become tradition, the Ducks have no shortage of talented backs on this year's roster.

Max Torres | Aug 9, 2022

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Oregon's offense hopes to be significantly more explosive this season. One way they'll do that is by getting big runs out of the backfield and chunk pass plays that involve their running backs.

With fall camp underway, the Ducks have five scholarship running backs and numerous walk-ons that are being coached by Carlos Locklyn as they compete for touches in Kenny Dillingham's offense.

With CJ Verdell and Travis Dye no longer on the team, we're set to see a new running back rotation. Byron Cardwell looks like he could be in line for a lot of carries after shining in limited action last season.

On Monday, Dillingham shed some light on his philosophy for distributing carries in a crowded backfield.

"It's not about total touches for me," he said. "It's about yards per carry and it's about explosive plays. We want to keep guys fresh that way at the end of the game we have fresh legs. The more running backs you have the better."

There's no shortage of talent in a backfield headlined by Cardwell, which also features Minnesota transfer Mar'Keise 'Bucky' Irving, Western Kentucky transfer Noah Whittington, Sean Dollars and true freshman Jordan James.

Dillingham has used a lot of different running backs at the same time while working with offenses at Memphis and some of his other stops. In fall camp, he isn't putting a cap on how many players could realistically be involved.

"We've used five before. We've had four before all be impact players for us," the offensive coordinator said. "Three gone over for 1,000 yards of total offense at one point. I'm not saying that that's going to happen, I'm just saying that we're gonna use whatever we got. Whatever our talent is. That way we're fresh in the fourth quarter."

There wasn't a lot of variety from a personnel standpoint at running back a season ago. Rather, we saw a lot of offensive linemen rotate in and out for a majority of the season.

Adrian Klemm has talked about how he wants consistency in the trenches, and now it sounds like we could see a lot of variety from Oregon's tailbacks to limit fatigue and keep defenses guessing.

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Published Aug 9, 2022

MAX TORRES

Max Torres is the publisher and lead editor of Ducks Digest. He's covered the Oregon football and recruiting beats for four years. He's based out of Long Beach, CA and travels around Southern California and the country covering top high school football prospects.