What loss of Noah Whittington means for Bucky Irving, Oregon RB rotation and rest of the Ducks

The unfortunate news came on Wednesday morning that the Oregon Ducks are not expecting running back Noah Whittington to return this season after suffering an apparent knee injury in the Week 4 win over the Colorado Buffaloes.

In a second-half run, Whitting went down and appeared to have his left leg rolled up on by a defender. The extent of the injury has not been made clear, but I’ve been told it is a knee injury, not an ankle injury, as was previously suspected.

Regardless of the location of the injury, it is clear the Ducks will have to go forward in the season without one of their top three running backs, a member of the trio that has been among the best in the conference thus far in 2023.

While it is a major loss, there are some important notes to make about the injury, and what it means for both Whittington and the Ducks going forward. Here are some of my biggest notes on the matter:

Whittington Has Eligibility Remaining

The absence of Whittington will certainly hurt Oregon in 2023, but there is a bright side. This likely means the talented RB will return to Eugene for at least one more season and potentially two.

Whittington has played three seasons of college ball and some change. That means that with this year, and the added COVID season that athletes were granted due to the 2020 pandemic, the RB has an available year of eligibility for 2024.

There is also a scenario in which Whittington chooses to redshirt for the 2023 season. He has played in four games, which is the limit before burning a redshirt, which means he could also come back for another year in 2025 as well if he wanted to.

While the injury certainly hurts, it by no means ends Whittington’s career as a Duck.

An Already Loaded Backfield

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It sounds a bit insensitive to say, and I don’t mean it that way by any means, but if the Ducks were to suffer a major injury, the running back position is at least a position they could withstand it.

RB is as deep as any position group on the roster for the Ducks. Going into the season with a trio of Bucky Irving, Noah Whittington and Jordan James, Oregon had 15 combined touchdowns and more than 2,000 rushing yards. Behind that trio, the Ducks have a tandem of blue-chip true freshmen, Jayden Limar and Dante Dowdell. Both of whom have solid experience thus far through five games.

This isn’t a situation where the Ducks now have nowhere to turn at RB with Whittington out. His production will certainly be missed, but with Irving and James, Oregon is fortunate to still have one of the best RB duos in the conference.

Runway Clears for Irving

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One of the main points of contention from Oregon fans in 2022 was that Bucky Irving did not get his fair share of the workload, and instead split a lot of the RB reps with Noah Whittington. While I contend that the RB split did both players good in the end and kept them healthy, we now will see a world in which Irving is treated as a clear RB1 going forward.

That doesn’t mean Jordan James will not be seen. He is an incredibly talented rusher who leads all Oregon RBs in touchdowns. However, I expect we see Irving’s attempts per game start to go up a bit. He has averaged over 10 attempts in the last four games, and I don’t think it’s crazy to see that number rise to 15 attempts per game without the presence of Whittington in the backfield as well.

An Opportunity to Step Up

I mentioned the true-freshmen tandem of Dante Dowdell and Jayden Limar briefly earlier, but now I really want to dive into their outlook. This offers a clear opportunity for either of those players to really step up into a bigger role. We saw last year that this coaching staff is willing to let a true freshman play a big role if they are capable of producing — Jordan James had 5 TDs as a true freshman — and now is the time for either of those players to prove they’re capable.

So far this year, both freshmen have received a bit of run in blowouts. Limar has 13 rushes for 67 yards and 1 TD, while Dowdell has 12 rushes for 61 yards and 1 TD. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Ducks try to rotate them in a bit more going forward, earlier in the game, and see what they can do with the opportunity.

An Opportunity for Receivers

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Ironically, I think this poses a bit of an opportunity for some of the receivers on the roster, particularly in the case of both Gary Bryant Jr. and Tez Johnson.

One thing that Whittington brought to the table was an ability to succeed in the screen game, catching some balls out of the backfield and taking them upfield. In his three games — Whittington was hurt on the opening kickoff against Portland State and did not take any offensive snaps — the RB had 10 catches for 78 yards. It’s not a great deal of production, but it’s something the offense will look to replace in some way.

While Irving has the ability to step up in that aspect of the game — Bucky has 18 catches for 137 yards in his five games — I will also be interested to see if Will Stein tries to spread the load to Johnson or Bryant, a pair of pass-catchers who have proven to be dangerous in space so far.

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Story originally appeared on Ducks Wire