MORGANTOWN — The running back room for West Virginia University’s football team is stacked with mostly unknown commodities, at least when it comes to how they’ll perform for the Mountaineers. Meanwhile, the one proven player has spent most of the spring practice season healing from injuries.
That has meant that a lot of different runners have been able to show their wares in front of new WVU coach Rich Rodriguez, and Rodriguez said that has been a benefit for him and the rest of the offensive staff.
A bigger benefit should be coming after the players return from spring break next week, Rodriguez said at his last media availability. Jahiem White – last season’s leading rusher who returned to lead the group in 2025 – is getting healthier and could be ready for a bigger workload for the second half of the spring.
“He did a lot more today,” Rodriguez said last Thursday. “And he might be full go when he gets back from break.”
White ran for a team best 845 yards and finished second with seven rushing touchdowns. His return means a lot, as the other two leading rushers on last year’s team, quarterback Garrett Greene and running back C.J. Donaldson, have left. Greene graduated and is trying his luck in the NFL Draft as a receiver. Donaldson has transferred to Ohio State.
“He’s kind of a proven guy,” Rodriguez said of White. “He’s got to get reps just to learn the system, but we know we’ve got a pretty good one right there.”
The other members of the running back room are either new faces or returning faces with little experience. Rodriguez mentioned a few that had shown some promise – Northern Iowa transfer Tye Edwards, Catawba transfer LJ Turner and redshirt freshman Diore Hubbard, who recorded one carry last year against Oklahoma State and saw action in just three games.
“They’ve been getting a lot of reps,” Rodriguez said. “And it’s good to get them reps, because we have to get them all evaluated.”
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When the players return from spring break, Rodriguez said most of the teaching should be done and the players should be applying what they’ve already been taught. He added that the mistakes that came in the first couple weeks of spring practice should be creeping out next week.
“I think that, when they come back, we don’t have to explain the scheme part,” Rodriguez said. “That should be a little bit familiar to them now, the way we go about doing things.”
There shouldn’t be any more questions about how the Mountaineers practice, he added. The players have been through enough of those this spring to know the expectations.
“We’ve held enough in the last few weeks that they know, from drill to drill, how we do in our methods,” Rodriguez said. “That part should be down. We still have to teach a few things, but we really have to evaluate.”
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Those evaluations will come as Rodriguez and his staff continue to mold the roster, which might still see some significant changes as spring turns to summer, which turns to fall camp before the team’s Aug. 30 opener against Robert Morris.
As the roster evolves and players come and go, Rodriguez said the real regrets don’t come from the players the staff wanted but got away. They come from players who they did sign but misjudged. One or two of those misses don’t kill a recruiting class. Nine or 10 of them do.
“It’s not the guys that you don’t get in recruiting that kill you, even if they go to a rival and you’re playing them once a year,” Rodriguez said. “It’s the ones you take that can’t play. That means you better evaluate the right way and sometimes a seasoned or more veteran coach has more experience evaluating.”
— Story by Derek Redd
