Former Oregon Ducks running back Bucky Irving has found his new home. This weekend, Irving was selected by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with the 25th pick of the fourth round in the NFL Draft.
Irving enjoyed a tremendously productive and successful collegiate career. He began at Minnesota and ran for 699 yards as a true freshman. All told, Irving exploded for a team-high 966 all-purpose yards in 2021. When Irving entered the transfer portal, it didn’t take long for blue chip programs to ring his line.
So for 2022, he moved out west to Eugene and thrived right away on a top-15 team, rushing for 1,058 yards and scoring eight total touchdowns. In 2023, Irving returned and improved on those marks, going for 1,180 rushing yards while scoring 13 total touchdowns for the CFP-contending Ducks.
In two seasons with the Ducks, Irving amassed 2,238 yards and 16 touchdowns while averaging 6.5 yards per carry — and his game wasn’t limited to the ground, either. Irving led all FBS running backs with 56 receptions in 2023, and over his Oregon career, hauled in 87 receptions for 712 yards and five touchdowns.
What NFL Draft analysts are saying about Bucky Irving
Lance Zierlein of NFL.com went through nearly every draft-eligible prospect and provided full scouting breakdowns on each guy. Here was what he commented of Bucky Irving:
“Compact and willful, Irving is deeply committed to each run his play-caller trusts him with. He punches above his weight class with excellent contact balance and leg drive to fight through tackles and squeeze every yard out of the run. However, Irving showed a concerning lack of explosiveness at the NFL Scouting Combine.
“He is frequently in a rush and would rather run through a wall than around it but he does have the agility to make tacklers miss with wide, lateral cuts when he runs with better patience. Irving isn’t ready for NFL protection duties and is a little tight as a route runner, but he catches the ball cleanly. Irving is missing ideal size and explosiveness, which could land him somewhere in the middle rounds of the draft as an average backup.”
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