Since the beginning of the modern era of Oregon football—and even in this weird post-modern purgatory we find ourselves in today—the Ducks have generated their identity by running the football.
Nationally-recognized ground games that were headlined by multiple 1,000-yard rushers, Heisman candidates, and future NFL rushing record holders helped to define even the earliest iterations of the spread offense—from Bellotti and beyond.
The book on Oregon for so long, however, was that they were all about speed. And they absolutely were. They weren’t running up the gut. They weren’t pounding defenses down after down with three yards and a cloud of dust.