Hokies Hope to Use Rejuvenated Marshawn Williams, Flexible Sam Rogers to Run Over Duke

For the most part, the Hokies could hardly be blamed for taking all the film they have of the team's performance against Miami and burning it.

But if the team was to take one thing away from their loss to the Hurricanes, it's that the running game seemed to finally hit some sort of groove in the second half. While the rest of the game might've looked like a disparaging sign of things to come for the remainder of the season, the Hokies could take comfort in the fact that the run game finally seemed to be coming together.

Then the Boston College game happened.

Tech put up a measly 69 yards on the ground, and all of a sudden all the old questions were back.

"The whole running game has got to be a lot better than it is," said running backs coach Shane Beamer. "I sound like a broken record, I know, I've been saying it for three years. But it does."

Part of the team's issues undoubtedly came down to the solid play of the Eagles' stingy run defense (currently ranked seventh in the nation with just 96.6 yards allowed per game) and the fact that the team needed to throw to catch up as the game progressed, but Beamer noticed something else when it came to starting RB Marshawn Williams.

"You all saw it, I don't think he was 100 percent," Beamer said. "He tells you he is and was, but I just didn't see the speed and explosiveness that I was used to seeing from him."

Williams has been coping with an ankle injury since the UNC game more than a month ago, and with 34 carries in his last two games as the team increasingly leans on him as its main options, he seems to be feeling the strain as the season progresses.

"There were a couple times in the Miami and BC game both, he came through there and got tackled one-on-one by a safety," Beamer said. "We're not used to seeing that from him."

But even going back to the battle over his hip injury at the start of the year, Williams has always stubbornly insisted that he's been ready to play at full speed, no matter the injury. Yet, even he seems willing to admit he wasn't quite at 100 percent for the last few weeks.

"I think I'm 100 now," Williams said. "Maybe not so much 100 last week or two weeks ago, but I'm ready to go this week."

His position coach seems to agree that he's used to bye week to his advantage.

"The off week did him well," Beamer said. "I think he's looked much better this week in practice, faster and more explosive and we need that."

If Williams is finally healthy, then the staff seems excited about what he can do these last three weeks. Although his string of injuries have slowed his development a bit, he's still largely delivered on the promise he showed in training camp and spring practice.

"To be totally honest, from a mental standpoint, he's been sharp and locked in, I can't think of any missed assignments, mental errors he's had from a pass protection standpoint, a route running standpoint," Beamer said. "He's getting better each week. Obviously, the injury set him back, but I like where he is right now."

For as good as Williams has looked, his nagging injuries mean that he does need support from the rest of the team's depleted stable of running backs.

Without Shai McKenzie or Trey Edmunds to lean on, the team's started to put more faith in fullback Sam Rogers' running ability.

"We like what Sam's brought to the table from a running standpoint," Beamer said. "When he's gotten in there, he's been productive. Pittsburgh, BC, he's gotten in there and he's moved the pile and gotten positive yardage each time he's been in there."

He only has 15 carries for 53 yards dating back to when the injuries started in the UNC game, but the coaches remain impressed with his command of the offense. Beamer says they ask him to do so many different things at FB that sliding over to tailback is a piece of cake for him.

"There's certain things that only he does from a route running, blocking standpoint that you couldn't ask the other tailbacks to do," Beamer said. "What we ask the other tailbacks to do, he can do all that."

Rogers thinks that knowledge comes from his diligence in the offseason, when it was still unclear how he'd get on the field.

"In the offseason. I really wasn't quite sure what they would do with me, so I just decided to know it all, just studied everything, so I'm ready," Rogers said.

After Rogers, the staff seems to have the most confidence in another player with fullback experience, Jerome Wright. He only has six carries over the last two games, but those attempts carry a powerful message from the coaches.

After all, veterans J.C. Coleman and Joel Caleb have received exactly zero carries the last two weeks, while Wright's gotten the call repeatedly after he very nearly left the team earlier this season.
"Jerome does some things, he brings a lot to the table, that's the reason we decided not to redshirt him, decided to play him," Beamer said.

Beamer insists that Coleman and Caleb are "still in the mix," but does add that the team doesn't "want to have a five man rotation," so it would seem that the pecking order is clearly set.

Yet Wright may find himself bumped out of the mix if Edmunds can complete another miracle comeback from an injury.

"Knowing Trey, I wouldn't put anything past him," Beamer said. "You're talking about a guy that had his leg snapped in two against Virginia and was practicing nine months later."

Edmunds this time is rehabbing a broken clavicle from the UNC game, an injury that typically carries a recovery time of six to eight weeks. Beamer is "optimistic" he'll be back for the Wake Forest game, which would certainly put him back ahead of schedule.

"He was out there running last week in practice, he really hasn't done a whole lot this week," Beamer said. "But he's in good spirits, he's in all my meetings, and if anybody can be back it would be him. I'm not necessarily counting on him, but I'm still hopeful that he'll be okay."

Beamer added that Edmunds had an x-ray on Monday, and he's still waiting on the doctors to receive the results.

In the short term, the team will have to focus on playing with what they have against Duke.

"We've lost a couple games, but we're on to Duke now and our focus right now is playing Duke," Rogers said.

The fullback-turned-tailback seems particularly excited for another shot at the Blue Devils after what they did in Lane Stadium a season ago. Getting the running game back to the way it looked in the third quarter against the Hurricanes would go a long way toward helping Rogers meet his lofty goals.

"You always want to get those payback games and that was one of those games where we dropped one last year and we like we shouldn't have," Rogers said. "We've got to show them what Virginia Tech is about and that's what we're planning to do."