These days, it appears the Hawaii football team’s offensive game plans comes with a rush order.

The Rainbow Warriors have amassed at least 200 rushing yards in each of the past three games. Their 147.8 rushing yards per game is the highest average in their 15 seasons of operating the run-and-shoot offense. Their 5.3 yards per attempt is the second most during that era.

“I don’t think we’re doing anything different besides running the ball more,” said Miles Reed, a third-year sophomore who leads the Warriors with 569 rushing yards.

In Saturday’s 42-40 victory over San Jose State, the Warriors had more carries (35) than passes (32), the fourth time that has happened in the 195 games of this pass-dominant offense.

“There’s not a change to our scheme at all,” Reed said. “We’re putting more numbers into the actual tallying of running the ball.”

The success of the four-wide offense factors into the uptick in rushing.

“We’re doing a great job throwing the football and catching, and that opens up more in the run game,” offensive line coach Mark Weber said.

The Warriors have done the math. If eight defenders drop into pass coverage, that leaves a three-man front in the tackle box, the imaginary rectangle at the line of scrimmage.

“Some of the light boxes help, as far as the numbers in the run game,” head coach Nick Rolovich said. “Guys up front are doing an excellent job with the fronts they’re getting. It’s like everything else with the offense. We see these coverages, fronts. They’re getting to a point where they study very well and they see the same fronts multiples times throughout the season. You’re seeing some confidence there.”

Starting offensive tackles Ilm Manning and Gene Pryor have embraced run blocking. Both tackles set up in a two-point crouch. They have learned to burst out of their stances and strike ends and outside linebackers. “With run blocking,” Pryor said, “you have to have a physical mentality. You can’t be passive.”

Through the first two games, Dayton Furuta, a 5-11, 250-pound grinder known as the “Froot Train,” was counted on in short-yardage situations. But after Furuta suffered an ankle injury, Reed and Fred Holly III have developed into consistent all-down backs. Holly is averaging 12.0 yards on third-down rushes. Reed, who has scored on 26% of his red-zone carries, is noted for his ability to get “skinny” in slipping through narrow gaps and spinning away from would-be tacklers.

“Any hole is hittable, I guess,” Reed said. “I try to find a way through it. Once you get through it, just get vertical and square yourself up, and go. Sometimes I see things, and don’t think I can get through it. You have to make it work somehow.”

Reed and Holly spend hours studying videos of opposing defenses, as well as their own quarterback and offensive linemen.

“I like knowing not only my job but what the O-line is doing, what the quarterback is looking at,” Reed said.

The running game’s productivity has forced defenses to cram more players into the box, which, in turn opens the passing game.

“I think it’s going to help balance us out more,” Reed said. “People are going to have to pick their poison.”