Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 8, 1994 TAG: 9409080063
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
You can call Brian Edmonds short (he's 5 foot 10) or comment on his shorts (his fondness for bikini underwear has earned him his nickname, Poons, which he says comes from a reggae-song word for short-shorts), but the fullback's contribution to Virginia Tech's offense will be neither undersized, brief nor skimpy.
You can even call Edmonds, as Tech running backs coach Billy Hite has done, the closest thing to Tony Paige - an essential Tech fullback of the early 1980s who had a productive NFL career. But even Hite cites two addendums: One, Edmonds doesn't block like Paige did (yet); two, they're really playing different positions.
``Tony Paige was a pulling guard with his brains knocked out,'' Hite says fondly.
``To be a fullback in [then-Tech coach Bill] Dooley's system, it was a very special individual. Frank [Beamer's] philosophy always has been to have a fullback that can hit the dive on the option, and [he] can be more of a finesse blocker than just a bull.''
Edmonds, a Nottoway High School tailback who gained more than 3,000 yards, didn't need a Tech history lesson when he arrived in Blacksburg in 1992 and was converted to fullback. He attended Tech's football camps for three years while he was in high school and remembers that ``a Tech fullback was just go hit the linebacker, get up and do it again.''
Not so now - especially with first-year offensive coordinator Gary Tranquill aboard. More running backs in pass patterns means Hite's charges spend 10-to-15 minutes per practice running routes. More one-back sets primarily will showcase tailback Dwayne Thomas, but his backup in those situations isn't another tailback. It's Edmonds, Hite says, because he's the next best combination runner/receiver.
A redshirt freshman in '93, Edmonds prepped behind starter Joe Swarm, gaining 18 fewer yards than Swarm in 15 fewer carries, and his four touchdowns covered 13, 37, 19 (on a pass play) and 7 yards.
He arrived at Tech as a ``recruited'' walk-on. Tech's coaching staff, which promised him a scholarship after his first year, wasn't as worried about Edmonds' future as Edmonds was. A 200-pounder who ran a 4.6-second 40-yard dash, he was the most valuable player of the Virginia High School Coaches' Association All-Star game in '92. Yet, he was a first-team all-Group AA choice as a linebacker; classmate Tommy Edwards, for example, was a first-team running back and one of the Hokies' prime signees.
``I got here, and all the guys are the same speed or faster, with the same clippings or more,'' said Edmonds, who got some jarring messages during 1993 spring practice.
One came when he heard some defenders muttering about how hard he was to tackle; one came when fellow freshman Antonio Banks succeeded at that task so forcefully that Beamer was shaking his head over it days later.
``He had hit, like, maybe three other running backs the same way,'' Edmonds said, acknowledging Banks' lift-up, slam-down tackle. ``I said, `This is how college football is gonna be. I've gotta get ready.' Because he was bringing it.''
Edmonds was resilient. The Blackstone native brought that with him from his Nottoway days, during which he played in three Group AA state championship games. In the first, Edmonds was a freshman, and Martinsville (featuring former Hokie P.J. Preston) crunched Nottoway.
In the second, Edmonds' junior year ended in the most brutal way.
Nottoway led Rustburg, he remembers, 6-0 with about 30 seconds left. Rustburg passed to the Nottoway 5, and a Nottoway player misread the coaches' sideline signals and called a time out with six seconds left. Rustburg ran the ball.
``He barely got in,'' Edmonds said. ``I was holding onto his leg, and he extended his arm [over the goal line].''
So maddening was that loss that, before his senior season, Edmonds passed up a chance to buy a class ring, vowing he would earn a state championship ring by December. He did; Nottoway beat Jefferson Forest 28-12.
Two years later, he would help the Hokies scrub clean after a grimy 2-8-1 1992 season.
``To come back the next year and win makes me feel like I played a part,'' Edmonds said of Tech's 9-3 '93 season. ``It felt like high school all over again.''
And although he has shrugged off comparisons to Paige, guessing they come ``because I'm short and round, like he was,'' the more people mention it to him, the more gratifying it becomes.
``It made me think I could be good one day,'' he said. ``It's always nice to think you can play.''
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by CNB