There is a reason why Dallas Cowboys’ Tony Pollard can outlast most running backs

Ryan Silverfield would love nothing more than to tell you that he and the coaches at the University of Memphis knew exactly what they had, and what they were doing, with Tony Pollard.

They had an idea. They had plans.

“It’s so funny, we always think we know exactly what we had when we had him,” Silverfield said Tuesday. “We all think we are geniuses.”

Like most coaches, there is more guessing than genius.

“He played a lot of safety in high school, and the original coaching staff (at Memphis) thought about playing him as a full-time safety,” Silverfield said. “I really do think he would have been an NFL safety as well.

“He was a freshman All-American at kick returner, and we said, ‘OK, what is he?’”

Anything and everything.

On the same day the Dallas Cowboys began training camp in Oxnard, Calif., Silverfield was in Arlington at the Loews Hotel for American Athletic Conference media days.

Silverfield arrived at Memphis as an offensive assistant in 2016, the same year Pollard’s career effectively began there. Pollard redshirted in 2015, and he played under Silverfield for the next three years.

For the first time in his career either at Memphis or in the NFL, Pollard will now be a full-time starting running back.

One of the biggest concerns about Pollard this season is whether he can do something he has never been asked to do, and hold up over 17 games. The Cowboys will find out what Memphis never had to.

His college coach expressed zero concerns.

“We knew he would be dynamic. In my heart of hearts, I truly mean that,” Silverfield said. “This is no knock on (Pollard’s college teammates) because I have respect for all of those guys. This is my eighth year at Memphis, and I coached in the NFL for seven years, and I thought if there was one guy who could last in the league it was him.

“The shelf life for running backs in that league is so short but he’s diverse enough. He can do the receiver stuff. I thought his shelf life would be a lot longer than most running backs. A lot of us make big predictions but I have total faith in Tony lasting.”

Why wasn’t Tony Pollard a starting running back in college?

The Memphis coaches knew Pollard was good enough to be their starter. They knew he was good enough to play safety.

The challenge was they had a load of capable players at running back.

“At the time Tony was with us, we had five NFL (future) running backs on the team,” Silverfield said. “It made me a better offensive line coach, that’s for sure. We had Darrell Henderson, who averaged 8.9 yards per carry for two straight years.”

Henderson played four seasons with the L.A. Rams.

Patrick Taylor Jr. played two seasons with the Green Bay Packers.

Kenny Gainwell is currently with the Philadelphia Eagles.

Antonio Gibson is with Washington.

Pollard was teammates with all of these NFL running backs.

As a result, his statistics in college were never of the outrageous variety. The easiest solution to this problem was to line Pollard out as a wide receiver.

“He has great hands, and he could catch the ball out of the backfield, which is one of the reasons the Cowboys liked him,” Silverfield said. “We had so many players who were capable of making plays, who were in the same type of mold as Tony.”

The problem Silverfield and the Memphis staff with Pollard is the same one so many coaching staffs have: There is a plan, and a desire to get the ball in that player’s hands. Then the game happens.

His career-high in carries was 17, in the final game of Memphis career. That is the only game he rushed for more than 100 yards, and the second time at Memphis he carried the ball 10 times.

“The ebbs and flows of a game, right?” Silverfield said. “Back when Tony was there, we played with a little more tempo. We moved quicker. Sometimes when you slow things down you can say, ‘OK, what is the play design to get him the ball?

“But we had a lot of options then that we also wanted to get the ball to. Looking back on it, do you wish you got him the ball more? Sure.”

With Ezekiel Elliott no longer with the Cowboys, Pollard will be the focus. This is his chance that he never had in college.

His college coach has zero concerns.