Cam Cook toted the rock 30 times in his West Virginia debut for 142 yards, and freshman Amari Latimer totaled six carries for 32 yards.
They were the only two running backs to see action in the season opener against Coastal Carolina. Part of the reason was that the game did not completely get out of hand, and also because the third man on the depth chart, freshman Chris Talley, was unavailable after tweaking his hamstring in pregame.
“I know I can’t change it, but it doesn’t make sense that you go out and warm up for an hour and then you go inside and sit on your ass for 20 minutes, and then you come back out,” Rodriguez said during his radio show. “You cool down, and then you come back out. It seems like you should wait to go warm up, then go to the sideline and take three minutes, and you kick off. We got a great band, and you got to have a pregame show, and they could still have a pregame show before that, but it’s like nobody ever does that because that’s the way it’s always been done. It doesn’t make any sense that you warm up and then you cool down, and then you go out. I thought you were supposed to, like, warm up and then play.”
Rod makes a fair point here, but unfortunately nothing is going to change with the pregame timeline.
“A little bit because he was going to be the next guy in probably, to get some reps,” Rodriguez said when asked if Talley’s injury threw a wrench into their plans at RB. “Martavious Boswell is probably that next guy now. But Lawrence Autry has been hurt, and now Lawrence is healthy, so today, Bos and Autry will get the third running back reps, and we’ll try to get them ready to go. It’s week to week (for Chris Talley) with the hamstring thing.”
Boswell is one of the fastest backs on West Virginia’s roster and was a highly productive back at the JUCO level, totaling 1,472 yards and 18 TDs at Copiah-Lincoln CC. Autry is a big, physical, downhill runner, similar to fellow freshman Amari Latimer. Autry is the same height as Latimer (5’10”) and only nine pounds lighter (221), which is still pretty beefy for a true freshman.
Assuming WVU does what it’s supposed to this week, we should see all four backs get touches.
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