Spring Football, Vol. 11 (Fears and Redshirt Years edition) ...

If you read Billy Hite’s comments in the previous post, you know that RB Darren Evans’ biggest remaining hurdle is getting beyond the mental block that whispers into his mind, “That tackler is going to wreck your knee again.”

Hite said he can see on Evans’ face the fear of a single hit to his surgically repaired left knee erasing all the months of hard work the redshirt junior has done to heal it. Wednesday’s mini-scrimmage helped Evans confront that fear further, but he got just three carries.

Saturday’s full scrimmage, then, will be a big one for Evans. He hopes to announce (to himself and however many fans show up at Lane Stadium) that he is back to normal. A reminder: Normal for Evans includes being so unafraid of defenders that he hits them head-on and flattens them (ala Maryland safety Terrell Skinner, the human pancake who highlighted Evans’ school-record 253 yards that night in 2008).

The dazzling Ryan Williams is Tech’s make-you-miss back. That’s not Evans’ thing. He’s the bulldozer. Hesitancy to take on tacklers won’t work for him. He knows it, and he’s busy telling himself to snap out of it.

Assuming he does that – and everyone around the program believes he will – there’s a very good chance it will solidify the possibility of a redshirt year for another of Tech’s talented tailbacks.

Sophomore David Wilson has said he’d be willing to sit out this season if it meant a more meaningful role in 2011 ... and 2012 and 2013. Having Wilson with three more years of eligibility after Evans and Williams (presumably) tear it up this season (prompting one or both to bolt for the NFL) would be huge for the Hokies.

With two such important storylines unfolding in Tech’s backfield, I thought it prudent to sit down with both Evans and Wilson yesterday. Here’s what each had to say on their futures, immediate and long-term ...

RB DARREN EVANS

ON BEING HESITANT DURING TECH’S FIRST MIDDLE DRILL OF THE SPRING: “Yeah, that first one, I kind of was. I’ve just been telling myself, ‘Just let it go. Just let it go. The leg is fixed.’ Then I was kind of giving myself an ultimatum, like, if I go and get hurt, then I know I’m not ready. So just go ahead and see how it turns out. Today (in the mini-scrimmage) I kind of let it loose a little bit. I know it will keep coming and I’ll start seeing things faster.”

ON WHAT HE WAS THINKING DURING THAT FIRST FULL-CONTACT DRILL: “I was thinking like, ‘Just run.’ But then I was thinking too much. My mind was tying up what I wanted to do.”

ON WHAT HE WAS AFRAID OF: “I guess just doing something that would hurt it, doing something that would set me back.”

ON HAVING WORKED SO HARD TO GET HIS KNEE HEALTHY AGAIN AND BEING AFRAID OF ERASING ALL THAT AGAIN ON ONE PLAY: “Yeah, and then just the fact that football is what I know. This is the thing I do best. Me getting hurt because of this knee, it just doesn’t seem fair. It just doesn’t seem right. So I guess I’ve been trying to play it safe and still go 100 percent at the same time. But that can tie you up a bit, because it’s almost a contradiction.”

ON WHETHER THE MINI-SCRIMMAGE HELPED AT ALL, GETTING TACKLED: “I was just getting the ball and not worrying about who was tackling. Just getting the ball and going. That’s how I was my redshirt freshman year. It didn’t matter who was across from me. I knew I was going to do what I needed to do. That’s kind of the mindset I had today. I was telling myself, ‘It doesn’t matter who it is, I’m just going to do what I have to do to get past them or go through them.’ ”

ON STEADILY GETTING WHERE HE NEEDS TO BE MENTALLY: “I think I took a big jump today. I didn’t think about if they were going to hit me in the knee or not. I didn’t care.”

ON WHETHER HE HAS BEEN HIT IN HIS REPAIRED KNEE YET: “I think so. Actually, on my last carry, I kind of bent it funny. But it didn’t hurt. That right there let’s me know it’s all good now. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

ON HOW GOOD IT FEELS EACH TIME HE HITS ONE OF THOSE BENCHMARKS: “It makes you want to shoot higher. I feel like the sky is the limit. That’s how I’m going to go into the summer and how I’m going to go into the season. I don’t need this knee to hold me back from that. I’ve got bigger plans for myself than worrying about what a knee is going to do with me.”

ON THE HOKIES’ LOADED BACKFIELD: “It’s real exciting. I know people say this all the time, but everybody brings something different to the table. It’s just exciting because we’re going to have an exciting offense – not just running the ball, but the passing game, too. That’ll open up runs for us. We’ll open up passes for Tyrod and the receivers. We’re going to be really good once we get on the same page and clicking. I think that’s not far from happening. Once that does happen, the sky will be the limit for us. We’ll be able to control our own destiny.”

ON WHETHER THIS GROUP OF BACKS IS BUILDING A LITTLE SWAGGER OF SELF-CONFIDENCE: “I think it’s a confidence. I don’t think it’s outwardly spoken, because none of us is really cocky. But the way we carry ourselves maybe. Especially with Ryan and his tattoos and stuff. He lets you know he’s the man without even saying anything. It’s just the way he moves. And with me, it’s kind of a reputation. No one really knows how good my knee is yet, but I can still see that people are kind of timid to hit me. I think there is, around the team, a little bit of respect. People know we can hold it down.”

ON LOOKING FORWARD TO STRIKING SOME FEAR IN OPPOSING DEFENSES: “Oh, yeah. Especially in that first game against Boise State. We’re going to be going against a pretty good defense. So if we do something big – when we do something big – in that game, it will be like calling out to everybody else. You’ve got to watch out for us. We’ve got options. We’ve got weapons.”

ON HOW BIG SATURDAY’S FULL SCRIMMAGE IS FOR HIM NOT ONLY FOR THE CONTACT BUT ALSO AS A CHANCE TO PLAY IN FRONT OF A CROWD: “That’s a big part, just that other people will be watching. It’s good to give people something good to talk about. I don’t want anybody to say, ‘He looked good, but he still looked timid. He didn’t look like his old self.’ I am my old self. Nothing has changed.”

ON WHETHER, THEN, HE INTENDS SATURDAY TO BE HIS COMING-OUT PARTY: “I’m already out here. So its their coming-in party, basically.”

RB DAVID WILSON

ON HOW BIG SATURDAY’S SCRIMMAGE IS FOR HIM SINCE HE’LL BE AT A TRACK MEET DURING THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY’S SCRIMMAGE: “I’m going to give everything I do 100 percent. This scrimmage, I’m going to go 100 percent. Anything I do, I don’t look at it like, ‘I’m going to wait.’ I’m going to go hard right now. They’re going to get everything I’ve got.”

ON THE POSSIBILITY OF REDSHIRTING THIS SEASON AND WHETHER THAT’S IN THE BACK OF HIS MIND THIS SPRING: “Last year, it occurred to me that it might be a smart decision (to redshirt). I brought it up to the coaches and they said, ‘We’ll see.’ But even if they told me I was going to redshirt tomorrow, I’d still go through every practice and the summer workouts 100 percent, because that’s the only way you get better.”

ON WHAT HE THINKS THE ODDS ARE HE’LL REDSHIRT THIS FALL: “I don’t know. You have to see how everything plays out. This is a funny game. You’ve got to be ready at all times.”

ON WHETHER HE’D BE HAPPY EITHER WAY, WHETHER HE GETS TO PLAY THIS FALL OR IF HE SITS AND HAS MORE TIME AS ‘THE GUY’ IN THE FUTURE: “Like I said, the redshirt was partly my idea. I wouldn’t be mad. I would miss playing a season. I’ve been playing since I was eight and never missed a season, never missed a game. So of course I would miss it, but I wouldn’t be angry at all.”

ON HIS ELITE TRACK TALENT AND WHETHER THERE’S ANY CHANCE THE FOOTBALL TEAM COULD LOSE HIM PERMANENTLY TO THAT SPORT: “No, no. I love football. I do track because I just happen to be talented enough to be out there and compete at the collegiate level in two sports. But I’m not leaving football – not unless I jump out the end of the sand pit and somebody wants to give me a million dollars or something.”

ON HOW LOADED TECH’S BACKFIELD IS: “We have one of the best backfields in the country, if not the best. Any of us could step in and start any game and do just as good.”

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