College football 2018: Top 30 breakout players to watch

Royce Freeman carried the ball 244 times for 1,475 yards and scored 16 touchdowns in 2017. Between Freeman and Kani Benoit, the team’s second-leading rusher, Oregon loses 2,259 yards of total offense and 26 touchdowns.

The Ducks relied more on their running game in 2017 than any time in recent memory, partially because of the talent they had at running back and partially out of necessity after losing quarterback, Justin Herbert, to a broken collarbone for five games. With Herbert returning, Oregon will have talent and experience at the quarterback position and should see a much more balanced attack.

Mitchell was the team’s leading receiver last year with 517 yards on 42 catches. He caught 39 of those passes for 504 yards in the seven games Herbert started and only three catches in the four games he was sidelined. In the last two games of the season against Oregon State and then Boise State in the Las Vegas Bowl, Mitchell and Herbert connected on 15 passes for 264 yards and a pair of touchdowns.

If Herbert can stay healthy and he and Mitchell can build on the end of last season, they’ll be one of the best quarterback/receiver tandems in the Pac-12 and possibly the whole country.