Arkansas tailback Jonathan Williams surprised fans throughout SEC country when he announced just days before the Hogs’ Texas Bowl appearance last December that he’d be returning to Fayetteville for his senior season.

Normally a player’s decision to pass on an early entrance into the draft in favor of one more year of college ball is taken in stride. However, for tailbacks it’s a different story. The position lends itself to contact almost every time it’s put to use, and tailbacks have a shorter average shelf life than any other position in football.

As a result, players will jump to the NFL with their first opportunity, looking to get paid right away for the few years of production they have left. Another year in college would cost them a year’s salary in the NFL, and would likely shorten their career by at least one year in addition to subjecting them to injury risk in the NCAA. It’s often the best move financially to leave for the NFL as early as possible, even though it often means leaving without a degree.

But Williams instead chose to finish his career at Arkansas the right way, even on the heels of a 1,000-yard season in the highly regarded SEC (highly regarded by the NFL, that is). He cited his family, his faith and his education as reasons for staying at Arkansas, and it’s tough to argue against any of those reasons.

But Williams’ case is even more unique than your standard fourth-year tailback going against the established culture and returning to school. It’s not because he’s wasting carries in the NCAA that he could be getting paid for at the NFL level. It’s not because of what he achieved last season or where he might have gone in last weekend’s NFL draft.

It’s because he’s not the only 1,000-yard back returning to Fayetteville this fall.

Joining him will be rising junior Alex Collins, who joined Williams in the 1,000-yard club last year. (The SEC as a whole only had seven 1,000-yard runners in 2014, and Arkansas claimed two of them.) Collins is likely to leave after the coming season upon his first chance to make the jump to the NFL, following the very trend that Williams is going against. Thus, head coach Bret Bielema must find a way to give both backs plenty of touches as they aim to impress NFL scouts on their way to the league.

But there’s no need for Williams, Collins or the Razorback fan base to worry. If there was ever a coach capable of managing this kind of crowded backfield, it’s Bielema. After all, of the six SEC tailbacks to receive at least 200 carries a year ago, he had two of them (nine SEC teams didn’t have any tailback carry the ball 200 times).

Bielema’s commitment to the run is well known amongst college football fans nationwide. Last year’s Arkansas team was not his first power conference team to produce two 1,000-yard rushers; he also achieved the feat in 2010, the same year his third-string tailback came up four yards shy of becoming his third 1,000-yard back of the year. Furthermore, in the last six years he’s had two backs rush for at least 800 yards four times. The dude can manage depth at tailback.

But Bielema’s teams don’t often rank high nationally in terms of carries per season, even though his tailbacks often rank near the top of the list as far as individual carries are concerned. At first glance, this makes no sense, but it can be explained.

Last year, Bielema’s Hogs were fifth in the SEC alone in rushing attempts, likely due to the downhill, old-school nature of his pro-style offense. While other teams run sweeps and reverses and utilize mobile quarterbacks in the run game, Arkansas usually employs one strategy when it comes to running the ball: Turn around and hand it off to whoever is behind you. The head coach used the same philosophy at Wisconsin and won Big Ten titles and Rose Bowls with it, and he’s going to use the same philosophy this year.

The Hogs won’t throw the ball often, and even when they do they’ll rarely use the pass to pick up large chunks of yards. That’s another reason Arkansas’ backs can run for so many yards and amass so many carries — so many of the Razorbacks’ drives are slow and methodical, using a lot of plays to gain the same number of yards an offense like Texas A&M’s could gain in half the snaps.

So when two guys get all the carries, and when you pick up more yards through the run than through the pass, it’s not hard to see how multiple backs can out-produce the sole featured back on other successful teams. Williams’ and Collins’ abilities are a big part of it, but Bielema’s style and his traditionally large and powerful offensive lines play a big part as well.

This all ties back to how Bielema will manage Williams and Collins in 2015, and how it might affect their draft stock in 2016. Bielema is going to provide plenty of carries to go around, just as the numbers indicate, which means both backs shouldn’t have to worry about a lack of opportunities to produce for NFL scouts this fall.

In fact, Bielema will likely sell the two, who’ve already shared a year as co-featured backs, on the principle of sharing carries to maintain durability for the NFL. Fewer carries apiece means a less wear and tear for NFL teams to worry about. So long as both backs produce, it should actually enhance their draft stock.

But at the end of the day, the coach and both his star tailbacks care more about winning than numbers of draft ratings. I mean, this is the coach whose team willed him to tears multiple times last year; that’s how emotionally invested in winning Bielema is. This is a tailback in Williams who put off his NFL dream to leave it all on the field for the Razorbacks, and a tailback in Collins whose never shrugged about sharing time despite having the talent to start almost anywhere else.

So the 2016 draft is likely the furthest thing from the minds of Bielema and his backs. Nevertheless, he’s going to manage a loaded backfield in a way no other coach could, and his backs are going to benefit in a manner that rarely takes place in the college game.

Everybody wins.