Football is a collision sport. Nothing original in that statement. And running backs are the players most collisioned against. They usually get the ball behind the line of scrimmage and by the time they start to get a head of steam going 11 defenders are trying to bring them down and they aren’t going for gentle.
There’s a reason why 27-year-old NFL running backs are so undervalued. It’s easy to rack up a lot of mileage at a young age.
Including college. One solution is to have a stable of running backs that can be shuffled on and off the field, the better to keep fresh.
On the other hand, if you’re fortunate to have a standout running back, why sit him down? What’s the best ratio of starter to backup, even starter to backup to more backup?
Not surprisingly Duke has found different answers to that question over the years. If we define modern football as beginning with the elimination of substitution restrictions in the middle 1960s, then Steve Jones is the best running back in Duke history. Jones played from 1970 through 1972, before freshmen were eligible, when Duke played 11 games and six-win teams did not go bowling. Jones played 28 games at Duke and rushed for 2.951 yards. That’s 105.4 per game. He carried the ball 683 times. That’s 24.4 carries per game.
And I can’t document it but most of those were between the tackles.
Jones wasn’t the only workhorse. Robert Baldwin spent three seasons blocking before Fred Goldsmith turned him loose in 2004. Baldwin carried the ball 276 times in 1994, 23 per game. Duke went 8-4 that season, the closest correlation between winning games and using one runner a lot. In fact that’s the only time Duke has ever won more than six games with anyone carrying the ball at least 200 times.
Duke has profited from using multiple backs. Randy Cuthbert rushed for 1,023 yards in 1989, the year Duke shared the ACC title with Virginia. But Steve Spurrier kept Cuthbert fresh by having him share touches with Roger Boone (514 yards), Chris Brown and Randy Jones.
Or look at David Cutcliffe’s best Duke team, 2013. Duke had a four-running-back rotation that year. Jela Duncan had 126 touches (rushes+receptions) that season. Josh Snead had 113, Juwan Thompson 71 and Shaq Powell 70.
Cutcliffe never had a true four-back rotation again but three was common and two was a baseline until 2021, his final season. Mataeo Durant set a school record with 1,241 rushing yards. But he had virtually no help and his productivity dipped as the season progressed. He averaged 3.3 yards per carry or less in three of Duke’s last four games, all losses, as Duke finished 3-9.
So, maybe there is something to rotating running backs.
Which brings us to 2023.
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