Built the same way: Mizzou, Virginia bring shared run-game roots into Gator Bowl

When Eli Drinkwitz turns on Virginia’s film, he sees a familiar offense.

He sees old ideas.

He sees concepts he learned nearly a decade ago in an NC State staff room, where Missouri’s head coach and Virginia offensive coordinator Des Kitchings once shared whiteboards and problem-solved how to gain an edge against better athletes. And he sees the fingerprints of a coach who never worked in Columbia but still helped define what Missouri’s offense has become.

Dwayne Ledford, now the Atlanta Falcons’ run game coordinator, is the architect Drinkwitz still credits for introducing the wide zone foundation that has quietly shaped Missouri’s rushing identity for years. The scheme traveled from Appalachian State to NC State, from college to the NFL and eventually into the SEC.

Now its branches face each other in the Gator Bowl.

Missouri meets Virginia on Saturday in Jacksonville, Florida, in a matchup that is less about unfamiliar opponents and more about two programs built to win the same way. Both want to stay ahead of the chains, grind out efficient runs and force defenses to chase space they cannot quite close.

A foundation built in another staff room

Drinkwitz does not frame Missouri’s rushing identity as something he invented. He frames it as something he inherited.

When Ledford arrived at NC State in 2016 and Kitchings coached the running backs, Drinkwitz said, the two presented a plan built around the wide zone, a scheme designed to stretch defenses horizontally, create creases against bigger fronts and allow backs to make one decisive cut.

“In the SEC, where we see big, athletic defensive lines, how do we create space?” Drinkwitz said Dec. 9. “And we’ve been able to do that in the last five years, effectively running the ball.”

Missouri has been living out that answer.

The wide zone is not built for flash. It is built for patience.

The concept stretches a defense horizontally, asking its front to run sideline to sideline before a running back makes one decisive cut upfield. Linebackers are forced to chase, safeties are pulled into run fits, and one missed step can turn a routine 3-yard gain into a crease that breaks open.

Over time, the accumulation wears defenses down. Missouri’s run game under Drinkwitz has lived in that space, pressing the edge, waiting for leverage to tilt, then punishing it when it finally does.

‘Bread-and-butter’ identity

By September, Missouri’s staff stopped talking about outside zone like it was just another call. It became a label.

“The outside zone has always been our bread-and-butter scheme,” Drinkwitz said after Missouri’s early season win over Kansas.

That description fits the numbers.

Missouri finished the regular season with 2,809 rushing yards and averaged 234.1 yards per game on the ground to lead the SEC. Ahmad Hardy, the latest back to thrive in the system, heads into the Gator Bowl ranking second nationally with 1,560 rushing yards and leading the country at 130 yards per game. His 16 rushing touchdowns rank fourth nationally.

The Tigers’ rushing success is not new this year. Under Drinkwitz, only the names have changed. From Larry Rountree III’s steady production to Tyler Badie’s 1,604-yard breakout in 2021 to Cody Schrader’s All-America, program-record 1,627-yard season in 2023, Missouri has repeatedly turned its lead back into a national storyline.

The thread has remained constant: space, patience and one decisive cut.

Hardy became the latest proof of concept.

‘That’s our DNA’

The scheme lives through people, not diagrams. Missouri’s offensive line has leaned into it, and its backs have trusted it.

“That’s going to be our DNA,” right tackle Keagen Trost said during bowl preparations.

Hardy, a transfer who fit the system from his first spring practice, embodies the traits the scheme rewards: patience, decisiveness and contact balance. Missouri did not just find another productive runner. It found another runner who fit the identity it already had.

The result was an offense that consistently stayed ahead of the chains and punished defenses for overplaying the edge.

Virginia runs the same language

Virginia arrives in the Gator Bowl with a run-first identity of its own and a 1,000-yard back in J’Mari Taylor. The Cavaliers leaned on quarterback Chandler Morris’ decision-making and a disciplined rushing attack to win 10 games and claim the ACC regular-season title.

Drinkwitz sees the familiarity.

“Their offensive coordinator, Des Kitchings, was on staff with us at NC State,” Drinkwitz said. “And he does an excellent job.”

When Drinkwitz studies Virginia’s tape, he recognizes the same core principles he sees every day in practice. Those include staying on schedule, limiting third-and-long situations and forcing defenses to defend every blade of grass.

That is the challenge when two teams speak the same football language. The base concepts are not secrets. The margin lives in the details, one missed fit, one lost edge and one block that turns a 4-yard run into 20.

Bowl game mirrors the philosophy

This Gator Bowl will not just be Missouri trying to run the ball one more time. It will be Missouri testing the identity it has carried for years against a coach who helped shape it.

Hardy put it simply during bowl preparations. Teams try to stop the run, he said, and Missouri still has to establish it anyway. Win the line of scrimmage, get the ball past it and keep pressing.

That is the promise of the wide zone. It’s not built for flash. It’s built for accumulation, for 3 yards, then 4, then 5 ... and then the crease that finally breaks open.

Ledford, now in the NFL, is no longer part of Missouri’s day-to-day operations. But his ideas remain, carried by Drinkwitz and now reflected back through Kitchings on the other sideline.

When Missouri and Virginia line up in Jacksonville, the chess match will not be about who discovered the scheme. It will be about who executes it better.

Two teams, one language and a Gator Bowl that will test which version of it still holds the edge.

Copyright 2025 Columbia Missourian

This story was originally published December 25, 2025 at 9:40 AM with the headline "Built the same way: Mizzou, Virginia bring shared run-game roots into Gator Bowl."