In episode #6 of Fox’s Universal Basic Guys, diehard football fan and Glantontown resident Mark Hoagies becomes head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles. His first act is to bring back an “old school mentality” and instill some physical and mental toughness, which, to him, equates to running it down the middle on every play. He takes over with 4th and 15th from inside his own 20, and proceeds to call a halfback dive, catching the opponent off guard for a first down. From there, he continues to run the ball on every play, an homage perhaps to the Eagles fans who show up outside of NovaCare when there’s been too much recent passing.

“run it again”

At the risk of spoiling the episode, let’s just say the strategy did not work.

But here’s a somewhat-serious question –

Could a real football team run the ball for an entire game without passing?


The answer is yes, or at least it used to be yes. The forward pass was once illegal, when football was a rugby derivative played mostly on college campuses. Here’s some background from the Biletnikoff Award website:

“John Heisman envisaged the forward pass as the salvation of a sport which had degenerated into dangerous formations and tactics such as the flying wedge and mass plays. After unsuccessfully attempting for 3 years to convince Rules Chairman Walter Camp to legalize the forward pass, Heisman enlisted the valuable support of committee members John Bell and Paul Dashiell instead. Finally, in 1906, the Rules Committee, college football’s governing body, legalized the forward pass. The allowance of the forward pass became the most important development in football since Camp’s introduction of scrimmage, the system of downs, and the modern scoring system. The turning away from the unimaginative and brutal mass attack and, instead, toward the open, fast-striking offense with the pass as a weapon appealed to players and spectators alike.

Nonetheless, for the next seven years the pass was rarely used. Then, in 1913, Notre Dame, through the athletic prowess of Gus Dorais and Knute Rockne, employed the forward pass with substantial success against the United States Military Academy team. After that game, the forward pass occupied a prominent position in offensive strategy. Heisman, Camp, and Rockne would all later be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.”

The modern teams that most resemble the college programs of the early 1900s are the service academies. Army, Navy, Air Force still run a version of the triple-option, which Paul Johnson also used somewhat recently at Georgia Southern and Georgia Tech, bookending his Navy stint. It’s not common these days, the approach, but according to the Sportradar data, the service academies all ran the ball more than anyone 2024.

Here’s how it breaks out:

  1. Air Force: 56.1 rush attempts per game (673 total), 11.5 pass attempts per game (138 total), 83 to 17 run/pass split
  2. Army: 53.8 rush attempts per game (700 total), 8.7 pass attempts per game (113 total), 86 to 14 run/pass split
  3. Navy 46 rush attempts per game (552 total), 13.8 pass attempts per game (166 total), 77 to 23 run/pass split

So Mark Hoagies’ college team should be Army, which, coincidentally, was really good this year. The Black Knights went 11-2 and will play in the Independence Bowl this weekend. In their game against Air Force, there was a combined 83 rushing attempts and 29 passing attempts, and in the Army/Navy game we saw 81 runs and 25 passes.

“this is old school, jam-it-down-their-throats football, okay?”

At the NFL level, there will never be a team that runs the ball like a college team, but apropos, the Eagles do have a top three rushing attack this season. That’s why this all makes me laugh, because Universal Basic Guys plays on the (accurate) Birds fan stereotype of “pounding the frickin’ rock,” and the Birds, coincidentally, are going to end up as the #2 seed in the NFC by doing exactly that.

The data says this about the Eagles’ run game:

  • 2,818 rush yards (2nd)
  • 554 rushing attempts (1st)
  • 28 rushing TDs (2nd)
  • 53 explosive runs (tied 2nd)
  • Saquon Barkley – #1 in individual rushing yards (1,838) and rushing attempts (314)

The closest we’ve seen to a 100 to 0 run/pass split actually took place three years ago, when Bill Belichick went up to Buffalo and ran the ball 46 times in a 14-10 win over the Bills. The conditions were horrendous, just a windy and cold mess, and Mac Jones ended up throwing the ball only three times. The archives also show a 1988 game between the Redskins and Bengals in which Washington tailback Jamie Morris carried the ball 45 times. But Doug Williams threw 22 passes, so it wasn’t anything like the skew in the Bills/Pats game.

As for team rushing attempts in a game, going back as far as the data allows, there are 13 all-time instances of a team running the ball 64 times or more, and the Eagles were responsible for two of those:

In that Cardinals/Packers game, the QB only threw the ball 10 times, but that’s still a wild number. 80 offensive plays? And 70 of them were runs?

Looking at those Eagles box scores, in 1949, Adrian Burk and John Rauch combined for 13 passing attempts in addition to those 64 runs, and in 1950 Tommy Thompson threw 25 passes while Toy Ledbetter and Steve Van Buren carried it 42 times between themselves. There isn’t much to glean from the modern era, but I did find a box score from 1976 in which Roman Gabriel threw just 13 passes and there are some games during the Randall Cunningham era in which they reached 70 to 30 run/pass splits because of Randall’s scrambling ability.

Beyond the occasional outlier, you just don’t see NFL box scores where the running and passing splits are more skewed than 80/20.

Finally, I’ve tossed around the idea of running the tush push on every play, only about half joking. You could never run the shove more than 2-3 times in a row, likely because your linemen would walk off the field and quit, or they’d all end up in the blue medical tent.

But, conceivably, if the Eagles get 1.5 to 2 yards per push, you could do three in a row to gain anywhere from 4.5 to 6 yards during any set of downs. That means if you could gain about five yards on first down, and get yourself into 2nd and 5, you could tush push three times in a row, and get a new set of downs. I envision a drive ending with 32 plays, 80 yards, and 14 minutes off the clock. You pass on first down, like a slant or something, pick up 4-5 yards, then three pushes, and VOILA – first down. This would totally demoralize the defense and no one would ever complain about running attempts ever again. It’s the type offense Mark Hoagies dreamed of. Running the ball right up the middle on every single play.

Universal Basic Guys is streaming now on Hulu. And reminder – all Eagles fans are invited to participate in a Mark Hoagies look alike contest this Sunday, December 29th, at 11 a.m. in the M lot before the Cowboys game. There will be a $$$$ prize for the person with the best goatee and receding hairline.

“uh, coach, maybe you want to try something else?”