Most college offenses have the QB in shutgun or pistol on early downs and bolt RPOs onto their run games. It’s much easier for the QB because he’s not putting his back to the defense and the RPOs are typically easy defined reads; sort of guard rails for college QBs. The QB being in shotgun limits some of the potential run plays based on timing/geometry, although lining up in pistol mitigates some of that. Under center keeps every possible run on the table, and it allows the OL to be more aggressive blocking at the second level. The playaction is more effective because the defense has to honor the run more aggressively, and it’s more difficult to see the handoff
Some of the best offenses in the NFL by advanced metrics are under center on early downs for a reason, although there are also some great offenses that aren’t. There’s an interesting career trend where as high end QBs become more senior, they prefer to pull the strings from shotgun so they can keep eyes on the defense at all times, although that probably hurts the run game and offense as a whole
This is all even more effective when the defenses are sitting back in coverage to take away the easy button TD passes by alignment, and also if you have a mobile QB