HARRISONBURG — There’s no pressure on Cardon Johnson to be the go-to guy right away, and that’s a positive for James Madison.

The team has four running backs — Johnson, junior Marcus Marshall, junior Trai Sharp and senior Taylor Woods — it plans on featuring this season.

By using all of them, Johnson can get his touches but won’t be overworked as he settles in after recovering from the Achilles injury that kept him sidelined throughout the 2016 postseason.

“That’s a great feeling,” Johnson said. “When you have that much of a dynamic unit in that one room, it brings a lot to the table and you can bring a lot to the offense.”

A redshirt senior, Johnson is healthy, but only returned to full speed with unrestricted contact at practice last week. The Dukes open their season in less than two weeks on Sept. 2 at East Carolina.

JMU coaches are happy Johnson is back, but will be happier if all ball-carriers can make it through the whole season. Sharp and Woods battled nagging injuries earlier in their careers.

“Number one is that you got to stay healthy,” second-year coach Mike Houston said of his running backs. “If you stay healthy, the potential is unlimited. All four of them are talented.”

How Houston and his staff plan to combat a beaten-into-the-ground backfield so those four can last a potential postseason run is by playing them all and sometimes at the same time.

Only Wofford, The Citadel, and Youngstown State totaled more team rushing attempts at the FCS level than JMU did with 750 attempts last year. Wofford and The Citadel are both traditional-option teams.

“That room has to be extremely unselfish,” Houston said. “It can’t be a me-first room, it’s got to be a we-first room. They got to understand that we’re going to need all of them to be good.

“We can use them on special teams and in some different situations where I wouldn’t use [former JMU running back] Khalid [Abdullah] last year because we didn’t have the depth. So that room gives us a lot of possibilities as a team, and I think [offensive coordinator] Donnie [Kirkpatrick] will do a great job of using those kids.

“You’ll see us playing a lot of different personnel groupings as far as backs in the ballgame.”

Position coach De’Rail Sims said the strategy to play Johnson, Marshall, Sharp and Woods would make the offense tougher to slow throughout the course of a single game, too.

“Keep people fresh because I like to have my doggone thoroughbred ready to go when it gets crunch time,” Sims said. “In the third and fourth quarter, they can keep hammering when the defenses get tired.”

During the Dukes’ August training camp, all four running backs said they are prepared to share carries with each other.

Johnson ran for 704 yards and eight touchdowns in nine games before the injury last year. Sharp racked up 617 yards and five touchdowns on 111 carries. Woods had only 43 carries last year, but averaged 5.6 yards per touch, which was seventh best in the Colonial Athletic Association. Marshall, who transferred to JMU from Georgia Tech, was the Yellow Jacket’s leading rusher in each of the past two seasons.

“Everyone brings their own thing to the table,” Sharp said. “Everybody has their strengths and their weaknesses. As a group, we help each other, complement each other and learn from each other.

“My strength is getting vertical, making cuts and getting straight down the field.”

Marshall said he’s learned much more about how to play within JMU’s offense compared to what he knew when he arrived in the spring.

“The biggest thing I’ve gotten better at since the spring is just patience on some of my runs,” Marshall said. “With some of the ways our runs are set up, you’re kind of slow to it and then fast through the hole. It’s a little different with where I came from with just hitting it.”

Sims agreed.

“It’s a sense of timing of how to run the zone,” Sims said. “When you’re a zone runner it’s a little different from being in the wishbone and having to come downhill. So the timing part of it is different for [Marshall] and that’s what he’s gotten better at.”

Woods has lined up in the backfield, in the slot and has been seen on special teams during the team’s practices. He also successfully played wildcat quarterback, throwing for a touchdown in JMU’s regular-season finale victory over Elon last year.

“He’s good at running the football, catching the football and blocking, so he’s a jack-of-all-trades,” Sims said. “He has a role defined in this offense and it’s as much as we can get the ball in his hands.”

As for Johnson, Houston said he “electrified” practice in his first day back at full speed with about a 60-yard touchdown catch, similar to the scoring grab he hauled in last year at North Carolina.

“Starting off in the red jersey, you’re cautious of what you want to do,” Johnson said. “But once you put on that gold, it’s real time. It’s live. It’s time to go and you definitely pick up the intensity.

“And to finally get back out and show that speed and show that you still have that speed, it’s a blessing.”