West Virginia Looking to get Creative with an Injury-Riddle Backfield

The West Virginia injury list continues to grow particularly in the running back room. Starter Tony Mathis Jr. has been sidelined since leaving the Texas game on Oct. 1 and is questionable heading into Saturday. The team's leading rusher, freshman CJ Donaldson, is out for the season while Justin Johnson Jr. has been banged up.

If Mathis can't go, it leaves redshirt freshman Jaylen Anderson to lighten the load. He has 10 carries on the season, three coming last week against TCU. Behind him is Marqkuan Rucker, who hasn’t had a touch this year.

“That’s our running back room,” said WVU head coach Neal Brown. “So, you got to start being creative after that because that’s all we got. We’re going to go with every intention to use all the running backs we have but we have got to be ready to go if we don’t. Not that it's ideal.”

“You know, that running back room, they’ve had a rough go at it, said offensive coordinator Graham Harrell. “But what’s been cool is every time we kind of get banged up someone else comes in and does some decent things for us and so we got to keep trying finding ways to get those guys in space.”

A viable option? Backup quarterback Garrett Greene.

He’s made appearances in various roles throughout the season. Last year, at times he took over signal calling duties in an effort to create space in the running game with the read option and in addition to running in behind center in certain situations. This season, in addition to situationally barking out plays, he’s also found an opportunity lining up in the slot and has made some plays along the way. Most recently, picking up nine yards on a third and three in the second quarter against TCU.

“We got to find a role for Garrett Greene to continue to grow,” Brown said.

“He deserves to play. He made two key catches the other day. He's still a quarterback, I want to be clear about that but he’s one of our best skill players, so we got to continue to find ways and I’m in favor of him playing more too. So, we’ll continue to figure out some ways with him, but he is versatile. He’s a good athlete. He’s like one of these guys it doesn’t matter at what you’re playing, he’s got a pretty good skill set.”

“He’s a guy that we can continue to grow packages with and put him in different spots and dress it up because he is pretty good with the football in his hands,” said Harrell.

The Iowa State defense already presents its challenges and is second in the league in rushing yards allowed per game at 114.9, and the offense was going to have to get creative to find space against the league's top defense.

Quick passes to the outside are an option to ease the burden on the backfield but with Harrell, it’s about finding ways to get the ball into the hands of the playmakers anyway possible.

“It doesn’t matter if we hand the ball to them or throw the ball to them that’s the goal of what we do is figure who can be good with the football in his hands find ways to get it to him in space,” he said.

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