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QuickTake:
He’s 31 and not far removed from his playing days, but when it comes to making sure his players are reaching their potential, Ra’Shaad Samples learned from his dad that being nice doesn’t cut it.
On a recent car ride home from the team facility, University of Oregon running backs coach Ra’Shaad Samples felt like he had to explain something to Jordon Davison.
Davison, Oregon’s sophomore running back, is coming off a stellar freshman year. He’s one of the best returning backs in the country, one whose blend of size and speed forecasts a lucrative future playing football on Sundays.
Samples wants nothing more than for his players to achieve their dreams. The way he goes about it, though, can be a bit jarring.
“I really care about you guys a lot,” Samples recalled telling Davison. “But I can’t let that standard drop. It’s a tribute to my dad and how I grew up.”
Samples’ dad? A little rough around the edges.
Reginald Samples, 71, has coached high school football for more than 35 years in the Dallas area, has won a pair of Texas 6A state titles and recently announced that he will return to the sidelines this fall. He has long been a proponent of tough love — something Samples experienced firsthand during his own playing career as a receiver at Duncanville High School.
For example, if Samples’ friends ever noticed he wasn’t texting them back, it was likely because he had dropped a pass in practice and had his phone taken away.
“I knew there was love in that household,” Samples said. “I knew he loved me. I knew he cared about me. But with how he held me to a standard and how he held me accountable, if you were a stranger watching, you might not think that guy liked me.”
And don’t let the youth of this apple convince you it didn’t fall far from the tree.
See, Samples is a young coach. At 31, he’s not too far removed from the players in his room — “I tell (Colorado transfer Simeon Price) all the time that he’s been playing college football longer than I’ve been coaching.” And as a former four-star prospect himself, he knows the pressures his players face and can relate.
But he also knows how good his players are — and what it takes to get the best out of them.
“Coach Samples can be very mean at times,” sophomore Dierre Hill Jr. said. “Some of the new guys that have come in have had the question, ‘Was he this hard on you, too?’ And I just smile because he really is. He wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t hard on you. He just sees that much potential in us.”
There’s a reason Samples is pushing so hard.
All last year, Oregon’s running game had been a weapon for the Ducks. They had a veteran leader in Noah Whittington, a pair of star freshmen in Davison and Hill, and as much depth as any UO running back room in program history.
Or at least it had that depth until the Peach Bowl, when a combination of injuries to Whittington, Davison and Hill, plus the transfer portal departures of Makhi Hughes and Jayden Limar, left Oregon with fifth-stringer Jay Harris receiving the bulk of the carries.
Oregon was so thin at the position that Samples said practice leading up to the game featured non-running backs taking snaps there for the first time.
“Talk about a hectic week with a bunch of early mornings and a bunch of late nights. I don’t think I slept that week,” Samples said. “Sometimes when you have an abundance of riches like we had in the running back room last year, you never think, like, ‘Nobody’s there.’ Then all of a sudden, nobody’s there.
“I learned you have to be able to turn over every stone. You have to be able to look at every rock. You have to be able to try different things.”
The bodies are back for the Ducks this spring.
Oregon added four-star freshman Tradarian Ball and Price to the room. Da’Juan “Dink” Riggs is healthy again. Then there’s Davison and Hill.
The two combined for 1,323 yards and 20 touchdowns in 2025 and have been open about wanting to leave legacies in Eugene similar to past Oregon tandems such as LaMichael James and Kenjon Barner. And if Davison and Hill want to get there, Samples isn’t going to be nice about it.
“It just comes from the background I was raised in. It’s natural for me,” Samples said. “I don’t go home and not sleep at night because I think Jordon or Dierre or Dink or Simeon is going to be mad at me. I don’t care.”
