West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez isn’t spending much time counting carries for Cam Cook, and he made that clear during his weekly radio appearance with Tony Caridi.
When Caridi pointed out that Cook had 30 carries in the season opener, Rodriguez brushed past the concern.
“Did he? I didn't even realize that,” Rodriguez said.
He did, of course, know how often his back was getting the ball. His point was that once the game starts, he isn’t sitting there tallying every touch. If Cook is still going and the offensive line is winning up front, Rodriguez is going to keep handing it off.
That mindset showed up again when Caridi raised the longer-term issue of workload.
“But long-term, he (Cook) can't do 30 carries.”
Rodriguez didn’t buy into the idea that the number itself was the problem.
“Well, hell, why not? I mean, if we're blocking it right, he might have 40.
But the reality is, I want to get Amari Latimer some carries. And we've got to get maybe (Martavious) Boswell (some carries).
And Lawrence Autry is a young freshman, and he's getting healthy, and we'd like to get him some carries too. It is a long season, but I'm not like, 'Oh, let's not give him so much he'll get beat up.
I mean, Cam, I think he's wanting the ball.”
Rodriguez also pointed to quarterback Mike Hawkins Jr., who had 20 carries of his own. That kind of usage can work in a game, but it’s not something West Virginia can lean on all year if it wants Hawkins healthy and operating at full strength.
The same caution applies to Cook, even if Rodriguez isn’t fretting over it in real time.
He went back to the same theme when he talked about how heavy the ball is.
“Those guys never complain about it. The ball only weighs, like, what?
18 ounces or something? They don't worry about carrying it too much.
But I've never heard anybody complain about it. I had a quarterback one time, and we won the game.
He had like 28 carries for 270 yards, and the media was kind of negative and said, 'Don't you think that's an awful lot for him to carry?' I'm like, first off, he wasn't complaining, and second off, that ball's not that heavy.
And I said, as a matter of fact, if we had the ball six more times, he would have had 34 carries.”
That approach has defined Rodriguez’s career, and it’s no surprise he sees heavy rushing volume as part of the job. But the physical reality is still there. The ball may only weigh 18 ounces, but the defenders Cook takes on are not light at all, and those repeated hits add up.
Cook rushed 295 times a year ago, averaging 22.7 carries per game.
West Virginia does have depth behind him, and the Mountaineers need to lean on it. Amari Latimer is the most obvious candidate to help share the load, with Boswell and Autry also in the mix. If West Virginia wants Cook fresh and healthy, it will need those backs to take some of the responsibility off his shoulders.
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