Finding The Formula: Dukes Evaluating How To Use Skill Players

HARRISONBURG — There are probably five wide receivers, four running backs and two tight ends good enough to start at those positions for James Madison this season.

Obviously, they all can’t play at the same time, so second-year coach Mike Houston and offensive coordinator Donnie Kirkpatrick are left to figure out who to use when at running back, tight end and receiver before the Dukes kick off their season at East Carolina on Sept. 2.

“We do have a lot of talent and that’s the problem, though, talent doesn’t do much for you,” Kirkpatrick said. “You got to get it all going in the right direction.

“That’s what camp is right now and it’s a little discombobulated.”

With the number of highly skillful athletes vying for playing time, reps in practice go beyond the traditional position battle and even further than seeing who the best player at a particular spot is, at least according to the two coaches.

Through the first nine days of August training camp, the coaching staff has emphasized situational snaps to learn which players excel in specific roles.

“As you practice, you start to figure out who has what strengths,” Kirkpatrick said. “And of course, you keep trying to highlight those.”

Seniors receivers Terrence Alls, Ishmael Hyman and John Miller along with junior David Eldridge and sophomore Riley Stapleton have worked with the first-team offense. At tight end, sophomore Nick Carlton has earned snaps with the first team as preseason All-American Jonathan Kloosterman is still working his way back from injury. Kloosterman, who missed the entire spring, should return to practice next week, Houston said.

Senior Cardon Johnson, junior Marcus Marshall, junior Trai Sharp and senior Taylor Woods have all taken handoffs as first-team running backs.

JMU had the nation’s fifth-best rushing offense (275 yards per game) last year with three individuals — the graduated Khalid Abdullah, Johnson and Sharp — who ran for at least 600 yards on the season. Abdullah led the country with 1,809 rushing yards.

Additionally, eight different Dukes caught at least two touchdown passes in 2016.

“The good thing about it is that last year we had a little bit of the same problem,” Houston said. “But I think Coach Kirkpatrick does a good job, especially with the way he organizes his formations and game plans for using a lot of different guys.”

A prime example is how Kirkpatrick takes stock of his running backs.

“As you get into some more specific packages, and [Thursday] we worked more red zone,” Kirkpatrick said. “[Wednesday] was a third-down day, so a third-down back is a blitz-pickup back and a guy that can catch the ball. The goal-line guy is probably someone that blocks a little better and can get his pads down to run a guy over because there’s always an extra defender down there.

“These situations give us a chance to start evaluating that.”

Analytics play a role, too, when determining which players are the best fit for certain formation or situation, Houston said.

“We self-scout offensively and defensively,” Houston said. “That’s what we spent the spring and the summer doing, and like right now, it’s great going against each other because [defensive coordinator Bob] Trott can tell Coach Kirkpatrick what kind of tendencies he has, and vice versa.

“You always want to check yourself because you never want to get to a point where you’re predictable either and I thought we did a great job of that last year, and that it’s probably Donnie’s strong suit. I never felt like we got predictable.”

JMU boasted the nation’s second-best scoring offense (46.7 points per game) last fall.

Over the last week, Kirkpatrick has experimented with different personnel groupings to see what could work well.

He has put Carlton on the line of scrimmage, in the slot and out wide. Eldridge, the Virginia transfer, has caught passes out of the inside and outside receiver positions. On Thursday, true freshman tight end Clayton Cheatham, who Houston said could see action this year, was used in multiple tight end sets.

“You’ll see David Eldridge and you’ll see Terrence Alls play out wide and play in tight,” Houston said. “A lot of it is formation pieces and it keeps the defense from locking in and knowing that this player will always be here or that they only have to defend this player or this personnel grouping.”

As the start of the season nears, Kirkpatrick said he’d have an even better idea of exactly how to use all the talent he has at his disposal.

“After next week, we’ll start looking at the first three opponents — Norfolk State, East Tennessee State and East Carolina,” Kirkpatrick said. “We’ll work in reverse order and start game planning for them, and that’s when we’ll start getting a little more specific with each individual about what their role is.”