Football Notebook
October 03, 2005 11:33 AM | General
October 3, 2005
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The brightest spot in West Virginia’s 34-17 loss to No. 3-ranked Virginia Tech last Saturday was the play of true freshman running back Steve Slaton.
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| Freshman Steve Slaton ran 11 times for 90 yards in last Saturday's 34-17 loss to No. 3-rated Virginia Tech.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
Just as he did in fall camp during the handful of opportunities outsiders were able to view practices, Slaton was impressive against the Hokies with his great speed, vision and willingness to run hard and mix it up.
However, Slaton’s first carry was nearly a disaster when he dropped Adam Bednarik’s pitch in the end zone, recovered it, and then out-ran the entire Virginia Tech defense for the prettiest four-yard gain you’ll ever see.
On the next drive he followed with a tough 19-yard run to the Virginia Tech 40 and then got nine more difficult yards to the Tech 18 before West Virginia finally reached the end zone.
The 5-foot-10-inch, 185-pounder showed his field awareness by stretching out for the sticks on a third-and-six pass play that kept the chains moving, and he had by far the best run of the year when he out-raced the Hokie defense to the corner, broke two tackles and carried another tackler for a 44-yard gain to the Virginia Tech 22. That drive also wound up getting West Virginia points. Slaton finished the game rushing for 90 yards on just 11 carries. He also caught two passes for 12 yards.
Asked Sunday if Slaton has a chance of starting this Saturday’s game at Rutgers, West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez answered succinctly: “Yes.”
The coach was impressed with the freshman’s poise performing on national television against one of the country’s top defenses.
“He played well,” Rodriguez said. “He missed a thing or two but after the first pitch that he dropped and one or two other small mistakes we thought he played pretty well.”
Rodriguez says that after feeling his way around the first four weeks of the season Slaton is now ready to handle more of the load.
“He ran hard and he kind of gives us an explosive weapon at tailback,” he said. “We’re really pleased with him and we’re glad we finally got him in there and kind of got him into the flow of things.”
In four games Slaton has carried 19 times for 132 yards. He is the only WVU tailback averaging better than 4.0 yards per carry (6.9).
Briefly:
“We had some bumps and bruises but we don’t have anybody out for sure,” he said. “Adam (Bednarik) actually feels better now than he did a week ago. He should be okay (for Rutgers). There is nobody from this game that got an injury that will keep them out.”
“We’ve shortened some practices down a little bit the last couple of weeks and we’ll cut a few periods out this week,” he said. “It’s a little bit of a grind and we’ve got to be conscious of where our guys are at and we’ve got to make sure they take care of their bodies and get enough rest.”
“Defensively we’re going to continue to rotate some guys in the secondary,” Rodriguez said. “There were some issues at corner that we’ve got to get corrected. As for the receivers we’ve either got to play more guys or we’ve got to get the guys that are playing to step it up a little bit.
“Our goal is to keep playing more people,” he said. “They’ve got to prove to us during the week that they’ve got to be good enough to win with and I think that’s part of the reason we’ve been hesitant with putting some guys in.”
“I thought they were underrated last year,” he said. “They lost some tough ballgames and they’ve got some really good skill players that are playing with a lot of confidence. We were in a battle with them last year and we’ve got to go back up there again this year.”
