Depth at RB Helps Diversify Offensive Looks
Tony Mathis Jr.
Justin Johnson Jr.
CJ Donaldson Jr.
Three West Virginia running backs are replacing the dominance of last season's Leddie Brown, and they're doing a great job.
Entering the 2022 season, incumbent redshirt sophomore RB Tony Mathis Jr. had spent his entire time in the gold and blue learning from Brown. Now, he's leading one of the most prolific parts of the WVU offensive unit.
Last season's 11 games, he charted 312 yards on 72 attempts. Through two games in 2022, Mathis Jr. has already compiled 130 yards on 32 attempts. Assuming that he maintains his 16 attempts per game and relatively the same yards per carry numbers, it will only take him into Oct. 1's Texas game to accrue the same amount of impact he had all of last season.
He's not the only true weapon in this season's running back arsenal though.
Sophomore Johnson Jr., who came into this season with the 2s, is also making strides. He has 41 yards on 11 attempts through the Pitt and Kansas games, and is poised for a longer-term break-out season.
The dark horse of Graham Harrell's offense has quickly become true freshman Donaldson Jr. The running back/tight end/ wide receiver triple threat landed with RB coach Chad Scott's room after a week with the program, and immediately shined out of the gate. He was a hot topic during Fall Camp, and proved the hype true with 173 yards and three touchdowns on 20 attempts; that's an average of 8.7 yards per carry and 86.5 per game.
"At the end of the day, if you can't run the football, you're not going to be able to win," OC Graham Harrell said. "I think we have the guys that, if you put in 1-on-1 situations, can make the plays, so if you can be really balanced, if you can run and throw the ball, you're going to be tough to stop. That's been good to see."
Harrell alluded to the fact that he now has a trio of running backs who can utilize the same plays without significant disparity. Coach Scott has a plug-and-play room between the three backs, and the strength of the collective unit benefits regardless.
"When you create running lanes for those backs, they can just be themselves," Harrell said. "You want to feed the hot hand. At the same time, you want to keep them fresh, so that's kind of the balancing act of that. I love that all three of those guys can get some decent yards... It helps when you have depth. It makes everything a little easier when you keep them fresh, keep them running, and when someone gets the hot hand, you feed it."
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