Oregon Football: How realistic is CJ Verdell’s 2,000-yard goal?

Heading into the 2021 season, Oregon football has one of the best running back rooms in the country with CJ Verdell and Travis Dye returning.

Sean Dollars has been out this spring with an injury which has put somewhat of a strain on the depth but when he returns, the Ducks will have four capable backs with four-star freshman Seven McGee arriving over the summer.

A room with Verdell, Dye, Dollars, and McGee could be as scary as any backfield in college football and the two veterans spoke to the media on Tuesday afternoon following practice.

Verdell knows just how good the running back room is and he’s stated that he wants to prove that this unit could be the best in the country. He also stated what one of his lofty goals is heading into the 2021 season: rush for 2,000 yards.

Last year was tough on Verdell as he played just five games and had 285 yards and three touchdowns. He didn’t live up to preseason expectations, but everyone gets a pass for the weird year that was 2020 with COVID-19 running rampant.

Now that he returns at full strength and should get a bilk of the carries with Dye, he’s hoping to post a career-high in yardage and enter some record books.

How realistic is CJ Verdell’s goal?

Rushing for 2,000 yards has only happened 35 times before by single players, but it’s not unattainable. But for a guy who will be splitting snaps with another talented back, it might be more attainable if he makes it 2,000 yards combined between him and Dye.

I just don’t see Verdell getting enough carries to reach 2,000 yards on his own, especially since he had just one more carry than Dye last year and his backup had over 100 rushes in each of the previous two seasons. If he rushes 250 times (which would be a career-high), he’d have to average 8.0 yards per carry to reach 2,000. Possible? Yes. Likely? Not really.

Will there even be enough carries to split it up with Verdell getting at least 250 touches? It just doesn’t seem like splitting will allow that.

Sure, he will likely be the top option in the backfield again and he could reach that lofty goal, but it’s not highly likely. Verdell and Dye nearly reached 2,000 yards combined in 2018 and 2019 and they should break that plateau together in 2021. I would bet that each reaches 1,000 yards which is far more likely than one hitting 2,000.

Have to love the goal for Verdell, though, and he did say winning a title is more important than his personal accomplishments.