“I guess you could say Martinez runs a little better and all that, but they don’t want to run their quarterback a bunch; they want to threaten the defense with the quarterback run," said DiNardo, who made stops as a head coach at Vanderbilt (1991-94), LSU (1995-99) and Indiana (2002-04).
Statistics back his statement. In Frost's five seasons as a play-caller, the high watermark for average carries for a quarterback came in 2014, when Marcus Mariota ran the ball nine times per game at Oregon.
“To me, the new trend is pass-first dual-threat quarterbacks," DiNardo said. "That’s where the game’s going. That’s where the pros are going, and that’s what the kids want to do. A quarterback doesn’t want to be an option quarterback nowadays. J.T. Barrett didn’t want to be an option quarterback at Ohio State, but he was a better runner than he was passer. But quarterbacks don’t want to be that guy. Nobody wants to be Tommy Armstrong anymore.
“They want to throw the ball, and receivers want to catch it."