The WPIAL football championship trophies have been the same for decades. They have a big wooden base with a figure of a player on the top. The player is running the football.

It figures.

The trophy is an appropriate piece of hardware for WPIAL championship teams. Despite the fad of spread offenses, shotgun formations and offensive sets with four and five receivers, statistics suggest the best way for teams to achieve WPIAL playoff success is to tuck the ball under a player's arm.

Just run, baby.

The playoffs kick off tonight with 32 games in the district. If history is any indication, the teams with good running backs or strong running games have a much better chance at going farther than teams with quarterbacks who pile up big passing yardage.

"It's November in Western Pennsylvania," said Aliquippa coach Mike Zmijanac. "That still means if you can't run the ball, or stop the run, then you lose."

The statistics point out the WPIAL is still a league on the run.

• Over the past 25 seasons, including this year, the leading passer in the WPIAL in the regular season has not qualified for the playoffs 15 times. That includes this season. Seton-LaSalle's Anthony Rizza led the league in passing yardage, but the Rebels did not make the playoffs.

• Over the past 25 years, the leading rusher in the WPIAL has missed the playoffs six times. The leading rusher this year is Hopewell's Rushel Shell, whose team is the No. 2 seed in the Class AAA playoffs. He must sit out tonight's game against Derry, however, for a violation of the school's anti-tobacco policy.

• Over the past quarter century, the WPIAL's leading passer has won two playoff games.

• Over the same time frame, the WPIAL's leading rusher has gotten to the championship game three times. Others have won WPIAL playoff games. The last time the WPIAL passing leader made it to a championship game was Frazier's Ray Ciferno in 1983.

"The game has evolved, no question," said West Allegheny coach Bob Palko. "But, if you want to be successful, you still have to run. Yeah, you need passing to win, too. But, if you look at how everyone is trying to spread people out on defense, they're doing that a lot of times in order to run the ball."

But the run beating the pass goes deeper than just the leaders of the WPIAL. Go back two years ago, when eight of the top 10 leading passers in the WPIAL did not make the playoffs. That same year, nine of the 10 leading rushers made the playoffs and three made it to the semifinals.

In 2005, eight of the top 10 leading rushers made the playoffs. Two were on teams that made it to championship games (Robby Armstrong of Franklin Regional and Marcel Farrish of Woodland Hills), and two others made it to the semifinals. That same year, six of the 10 leading passers made the playoffs, but only Seton-LaSalle's Matt Rodgers reached the semifinals.

Even when teams have had good throwing quarterbacks, their coaches will tell you running the ball was vital to postseason success.

At West Allegheny, Palko's son, Tyler, was a standout quarterback who led the team to three consecutive WPIAL titles and one PIAA championship before going on to a fine career at Pitt. But Tyler averaged only 17 passes a game in the regular season and was only 22nd in the WPIAL in passing.

"We threw the ball more off of play action and things like that," Bob Palko said. "But we wanted to run the ball."

So the past suggests that teams with running backs like Shell, Beaver Falls' Cody Cook and West Allegheny's Mike Caputo will go far this year.

"Players are more skilled nowadays, and teams are coached more at throwing the ball better," Zmijanac said. "Teams that throw the ball a lot can win a lot of games. But they have a hard time winning championships.

"You look at Jeannette, even when they had Terrelle Pryor. They used a spread offense, but they didn't throw that many times a game. They spread you out to run the ball."

As a senior, Pryor averaged seven passes a game in the regular season. Of course, Jeannette crushed many teams that season, and Pryor was pulled from many games in the second half.

"However, you can't win if you can't throw the ball at all," Zmijanac said. "The key is you have to throw it when you want to and not when you have to."

But some teams, like Penn Hills, McKeesport and Hopewell, have won WPIAL championships and state championships while throwing fewer than five passes in postseason games.

Maybe this running to success is a Western Pennsylvania thing. Not so, says Thomas Jefferson coach Bill Cherpak, whose team has won three WPIAL Class AAA titles in a row and two consecutive PIAA championships. Cherpak has a good relationship with coaches at Hoover High School, a nationally known program from Alabama. Cherpak has attended passing camps and clinics at Hoover.

"I think a lot of areas are still like this area," Cherpak said. "I have a lot of friends down at Hoover. They used to do a lot of five-receiver sets. But they've gotten back to running the football now. Just because you can't get into a situation where you have to outscore teams every game because you don't have a ball-control offense."

Cherpak is a tad worried about his team because it has not run the ball effectively lately, mainly because leading rusher Rob Ruffing has been out with a broken collarbone. Thomas Jefferson has now moved 6-foot-3 T.J. Matrascia from receiver to running back.

"He's not a big-play threat," Cherpak said. "But we like him just because he can get you some extra, tough yards and give you enough to maybe control the ball."

And win.

Mike White's "High School Sports Edition" videos are featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.