PFF names Oregon Ducks' running back a candidate for breakout 2024 season
By Ethan Lee
Dan Lanning and the Oregon football team are gearing up for another thrilling season. This time, the Ducks are looking to continue building momentum and are looking to fight for a shot at a national championship. A bunch of strong performances from a talented running back, like maybe Jordan James, would certainly help in that regard.
Ahead of the 2024 Oregon football season, the talented running back has caught the attention of Pro Football Focus (PFF), who named him among their top breakout candidates heading into the 2024 college football season.
James is a phenomenally talented running back and despite the fact that he split carries with Bucky Irving a season ago, he made it clear that he has a ton of potential to be a star for the Ducks. James did well to make the most of his opportunities last season as he ran for 759 yards and 11 touchdowns on 107 carries (good for 7.1 yards per carry).
And according to the fancy number crunching that PFF does, James led the country with an impressive 94.8 rushing grade.
Oregon football: Ducks running back Jordan James set for breakout 2024 season
With Will Stein as the offensive coordinator and Dillon Gabriel at quarterback, there’s a very good chance that James is set up to succeed this season given that opposing defenses can really only do so much to account for all of the firepower the Ducks will have on offense this year.
According to PFF, James led the nation with an outstanding 94.8 rushing grade. This elite score demonstrates his effectiveness and efficiency when carrying the ball. Even more impressive, James picked up a first down or touchdown on a staggering 41.7% of his attempts, also leading all FBS running backs.
As PFF notes in their analytics, James picked up a first down or scored a touchdown on 41.7 percent of his rushing attempts. That’s incredible. And while there’s a chance he doesn’t have that high of a success rate in that metric this coming season, there’s a great chance that he’s still going to thrive.
And with Irving now in the NFL, James has the perfect opportunity to take over as the featured back in Oregon’s offense. It’ll be really fun to see him as the featured back with Noah Whittington complimenting him. This offense is going to be a blast to watch this season.