Super Backfield
April 30, 2003 03:02 PM | General
April 30, 2003
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – He can’t remember exactly why but running back Jason Colson grew up a misplaced West Virginia football fan in Rochester, N.Y.
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| Freshman Jason Colson is one part of West Virginia's impressive fleet of running backs assembled by Coach Rich Rodriguez. (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
Colson, from the heart of Syracuse country, says he remembers as a kid watching Mountaineer running back Robert Walker break off long runs for touchdowns.
Could it have been Walker’s 90-yard TD run in the Carrier Dome against Syracuse in 1993 that sealed the deal?
“No not really,” he says. “I did remember seeing it on TV though.”
Colson says the Walker touchdown run he remembers the best came later in the ’93 season against Miami that helped the Mountaineers defeat the No. 4-rated Hurricanes on the way to a Big East football championship and a Sugar Bowl berth.
At that point, the Gold and Blue were colors Colson could see himself wearing.
“I always looked at the Big East when I was younger being from the Syracuse area so you kind of see other teams and West Virginia always caught my eye,” he said.
The soft spoken freshman became a productive high school player at Rochester Edison Tech, a city school that traditionally produces a lot of outstanding athletes. Colson rushed for more than 3,000 yards and scored 31 touchdowns during his junior and senior seasons at Edison Tech, earning second-team all-state honors.
Despite his productivity as a running back, it was Colson’s terrific speed and lanky frame that attracted college recruiters wanting to convert him into a defensive back.
That was Syracuse’s intentions.
Colson had his mind set on becoming a college running back and accepting WVU recruiting coordinator Herb Hand’s scholarship offer was a no-brainer when Hand told Colson he was welcome to play running back for the Mountaineers.
“I always wanted to run the ball and Syracuse had me at DB. That was one of the reasons I chose West Virginia along with the great atmosphere here,” said Colson.
Colson, who stands 6 feet and weighs slightly more than 190 pounds, is built a little different than the recent crop of running backs at WVU.
Since Amos Zereoue ripped off his long touchdown run against Pitt on his very first collegiate carry in 1996, West Virginia runners have tended to stand lower to the ground. Zereoue is listed as 5-foot-8 but is probably closer to 5-foot-6.
Avon Cobourne, who broke almost all of Zereoue’s records at WVU, was listed as 5-foot-7 at the NFL combines.
Quincy Wilson, the heir apparent to Cobourne, packs 210 pounds on a squatty 5-foot-9 frame. To those three Colson is a gigantic. Colson says his running style presents defenses with a different look, like a left-handed curveball pitcher following a flame throwing right-hander.
“The traditional running back at West Virginia is much shorter than I am,” he said. “Avon and Amos were much shorter and I’m more of a 6-foot runner. There’s a difference in the way we run.”
Colson, who says he runs a legitimate 4.5 forty, is probably the fastest running back on West Virginia’s roster.
Colson came in the same recruiting class with Columbus, Ohio, prep star Erick Phillips and helped give West Virginia phenomenal depth at the running back position last year. Colson knew when he came to WVU that Coach Rich Rodriguez and assistant coach Calvin Magee was assembling an impressive fleet of runners.
“College is very competitive, not like high school, and you can be the best player on your team but when you come to college everyone is just as good as you and it’s going to be competitive,” he said. “You have to do other things that the other running backs can’t do to try and get in front of them.”
Colson says there is a big difference between himself and Phillips. Colson rates Errick as more of a “power runner” while he considers himself more of a “speed runner.”
“I think we’ll be a good combination, though,” Colson said.
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Making the position even deeper is the steady all-around performance of Hikee Johnson (a former Virginia transfer) the rapid development of diminutive, 5-foot-6 slasher Bryan Wright of Romney, W.Va., and the fall enrollment of 6-foot-2, 240-pound junior college star Kay-Jay Harris.
“We thought we’ve recruited well and they’ve really come on this spring,” said Rodriguez of his running backs. “Coach Magee has done a great job with our running backs and they’ve emerged. You add the three freshmen Wright, Colson and Phillips with Quincy and Hikee and Kay-Jay coming in the fall, and I've said that was our deepest position. I’m even more confident that will be the case this fall.”
West Virginia’s backfield has a full compliment of power runners, slashers and home run hitters. For WVU old timers, this current crop of runners is very similar to the stable of running backs Jim Carlen and Bobby Bowden assembled in the early 1970s when Jim Braxton, Bob Gresham, Pete Wood, Eddie Williams and Kerry Marbury prowled the old Mountaineer Field turf.
“That’s our goal if we can get every position as deep and as talented and as competitive as our running backs,” said Rodriguez. “If we can do that then we know our football program is on the way up.”
Last season, Colson sat and watched Cobourne and Wilson chew up yardage at a record rate.
“When you have guys like Avon and Quincy in front of you, you kind of learn by watching them. I think the best thing that could have happened to me in this program was to be red-shirted,” said Colson.
The business major says he was generally pleased with his performance this spring, though a couple of fumbles in scrimmages have bothered him.
“I’m working on all areas of my game to get better,” he said.
Colson led the Gold team with 55 yards in last Saturday’s Spring Game, but he was unhappy about coughing up the football once.
“I had a fumble and I think I could have read my blocks better. There is always something in your game that you can improve, no matter if you have a 300-yard game or a 100-yard game there is always something you can improve on,” he said.
Wilson, a shrewd judge of football talent, says Colson has all of the intangibles to be an excellent college running back.
“I think he’s got a chance to be big-time,” said Wilson. “He’s got all of the tools.”
