Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 14, 1993 TAG: 9310140148
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
A flash of childishness may have been just the thing to harden Dwayne Thomas' maturity.
Virginia Tech's sophomore tailback distinguished himself during the Hokies' brawl against Maryland Sept. 25 by hurling a helmet at a Terrapin. Thomas was one of four players ejected, and his face-mask fastball was replayed several times on ESPN.
Thomas, who says how he acts and plays can influence teammates, rues the moment.
"My temper was up. Things went bad at the time," he said. "I showed the wrong attitude toward the other players [teammates] by getting ejected."
The brawl occurred with three seconds left in the first half. Minutes later, Thomas' temper evaporated. Tech running backs coach Billy Hite says Thomas leads - and inspires - with his running. The banished Thomas, who had 93 yards at halftime, couldn't do anything more.
"He knew he had screwed up," said Hite, who wanted Thomas to understand he had hurt the team. "I was so happy to see how upset he was at himself, to see tears in his eyes."
Tech didn't miss Thomas much in the second half against Maryland, which has one of the nation's worst defenses. But Thomas missed almost all of the second half with a sprained ankle in the loss to West Virginia; Tech's rushing yards dropped from 98 in the first half to 32 in the second, and total yards went from 183 to 131.
Tech's reserve tailbacks are no stiffs - Tommy Edwards has 261 yards and Ranall White 203 in five games - but Thomas isn't quite replaceable. He has 444 yards and four touchdowns on 81 carries and has eight receptions, at least six more than any other running back.
Thomas has one-third of the rushing attempts by Tech running backs; last year's attempts leader, Tony Kennedy, had 27 percent (111 of 407). In the three previous years, Kennedy led the team with about one-third of the running backs' carries - but Thomas' 444 yard-total through five games is only 240 yards below Kennedy's best output of 684 yards in '91, the highest Tech total since Maurice Williams' 1,029 yards in '86.
Too, Thomas is available. Hite said the redshirt sophomore has missed two days of practice since his arrival at Tech, both last week before Tech's open date because of the sprained ankle suffered against WVU. Thomas says he respects practice, especially after several Hokies were regular absentees from workouts last year.
"There's no need going out on the field if you're not going to play to the best of your ability," he said. "We're going out there to have fun and win the game."
Thomas' work has paid off.
"Dwayne understands our offense better than the other tailbacks," Hite said. "He really means a lot in our offense, as a blocker also. He's so comfortable being back there, no matter what's called. You can see the other kids are still learning; [sometimes] they're not in the right spot."
Thomas had a head start on Edwards and White, but not much. He carried 53 times in 1992, 27 of those coming in the ninth and 10th games of the season. In Game 9 against Syracuse, he started for the first time after backing up four-year players Vaughn Hebron and Kennedy.
With those two gone, Thomas entered 1993 spring practice as the top tailback and worrying only about staying healthy. The transition to starter was more in his head than on the field.
"Things had to change for me," he said. "I had to lead the way now. A lot of players key off what other players do. You see [the tailback] doing a great job, you want to be in that highlight, too."
His 70-yard touchdown run against Pittsburgh was a career high, made at least one ESPN highlight show and capsuled the West Virginia coaching staff's discomfort about defending Thomas and Tech's running game.
WVU defensive coordinator Steve Dunlap said he told his staff to work on solely on tackling between five and eight minutes a day in practice before the Tech game.
"We worried about them running through our arms," Dunlap said. "Of all the backs, [Thomas] possessed the most speed. He can run inside and outside."
Tackle-breaking is common for Thomas, a 5 foot 10, 192-pounder who has run a 4.48-second 40-yard dash. It's not all natural, either. Hite says he coaches the running backs in three areas: timing with the quarterback, footwork, and carrying the ball in the "outside" arm - away from the defense. The latter, Hite says, allows his backs to stiff-arm.
Hite said he doesn't second-guess a runner on when or where he cuts. But he doesn't even want his backs to switch arms during a carry because of the risk of a fumble.
Thomas, Hite said, has fumbled once in 134 carries, not including muffed pitchouts.
Even when Thomas does drop the ball, it's unlikely he'll overheat because of it. The Maryland incident, he said, was an aberration.
"I don't get mad very easily," he said. "I try to keep myself calm about everything. I try to focus on what I need to do. If I get mad or angry, I think I'll start messing up."
Keywords:
FOOTBALL
by CNB