Eric Morris doesn’t need a scouting report to know what West Virginia quarterback Michael Hawkins Jr. can do.
He saw it years ago in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, when Hawkins was starring at Emerson High School as a coveted Top 200 recruit and drawing power-conference attention from everywhere. Morris was at North Texas then, still early in his career, and Hawkins was already the kind of quarterback coaches circled fast.
Now the two cross paths again Saturday, with Morris leading Oklahoma State into Morgantown to face Hawkins and the unbeaten Mountaineers.
“I watched Hawkins in high school. I think he could do whatever [he wanted],” Morris said earlier this week.
Hawkins’ move to West Virginia after two uneven seasons at Oklahoma has unlocked him in Rich Rodriguez’s spread option system. The fit has been immediate, and the numbers show it.
He leads the Mountaineers with 322 rushing yards on 44 carries and six touchdowns, including three scores against Virginia last week. Through the air, he has completed 26 of 38 passes for 477 yards, five touchdowns and no interceptions.
For Morris, the key point is simple: Hawkins isn’t just a runner wearing a quarterback’s jersey. He can beat defenses in both directions.
“Some of these guys are great athletes and great runners, but they might have a fault and not be able to throw the football down the field,” Morris said. “Whereas he can, right? So I think he's a true dual threat quarterback, and that's what makes him so difficult [to defend] when you have a guy that can do both so well.”
That puts Oklahoma State’s defense in the spotlight. The Cowboys’ 4-2-5 scheme under defensive coordinator Skyler Cassity has held up so far this season, and Morris said he liked how his team tackled and handled the boundary against Oregon two weeks ago. But Hawkins is a different kind of problem than Ducks quarterback Dante Moore because the designed run game is such a central part of what West Virginia does.
Morris said the challenge starts with the details.
“That's something we haven't faced this year,” Morris said of the WVU offensive scheme. “Really, it’s just being able to get that extra blocker into run schemes, right?
So we're gonna have to do a nice job of communication, and whenever we do get a chance to get him [Hawkins] on the ground [we have to]. Missed tackles will kill you.”
West Virginia’s ground game, fueled by Hawkins and running back Cam Cook, has become one of the nation’s best through three games. The Mountaineers leaned on it last week in a win over Virginia, and that performance gave a glimpse of the pressure Oklahoma State will face.
With both teams entering Big 12 play trying to build momentum, Saturday may come down to a familiar football truth: one quarterback doing what he does best, and one defense trying to stop it.
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