If running back is the deepest position group on the Virginia roster this summer, as head coach Bronco Mendenhall said after the first practice of camp last Friday, then senior Wayne Taulapapa is the player who sets the standard for the rest of the group.
“Good luck beating out Wayne,” Mendenhall told reporters gathered in the shadow of the George Welsh Indoor Practice Facility. “ He just seems to win every drill every time they’re competing and he’s demonstrated that. So I like his chances.”
Taulapapa is the most experienced player at a position that could run at least five deep heading into next month’s season opener against William & Mary. Sophomore Mike Hollins rejoined the program this offseason after opting out of the 2020 campaign. Senior Ronnie Walker is back after joining the Wahoos midway through last season as a transfer from Indiana. Graduate transfer Devin Darrington arrived this summer from Harvard, while first-year Amaad Foston is also in his first camp with the Cavaliers after enrolling early last spring.
If five is a crowd on the practice field, Tualapapa believes he and his teammates aren’t bothered by it.
“We kind of laugh about it. It’s competition,” he said. “We’re out here to make each other better, and in a way you’re showing your love by, ‘I want to make you better so I’m gonna go 100 percent and you’re gonna go 100 percent.’”
By this point in his career, the UVa coaching staff knows what it has in Taulapapa. He has averaged 4.3 yards per carries and scored 17 times on his 204 runs the past two seasons. Taulapapa has had five career multi-score games, including a three-touchdown night against Florida State in 2019. He’s carried the ball at least 10 times in 13 of the team's last 24 games.
But while Taulapapa has proven reliable, particularly in short-yardage situations, he hasn’t been much of a big-play threat: Only four of his 17 career touchdown runs have been on carries of 10 yards or longer. His longest career run is 31 yards; his longest touchdown scamper is 19. Taulapapa’s 95-yard day in last September’s opener against Duke is his career high and one of just two times he has broken 75 rushing yards in a game.
Hollins, meanwhile, showed some juice as a true freshman in 2019. He averaged 5.3 yards and ran for three scores on just 21 carries, and his 37-yard run against William & Mary was one yard shy of UVa's longest by a running back that season (PK Kier had a 38-yarder against Liberty). But Hollins seemed to lose the faith of the coaching staff after a costly fumble deep in Miami territory midway through the mid-October loss to the Hurricanes that year. He got just eight carries the rest of the season, all against Liberty, before opting out last year.
Walker averaged 2.9 yards on 23 carries down the stretch last season after his transfer waiver from Indiana was approved after the season began and he was out with an illness for a while after. With the Ivy League canceling football, Darrington didn’t play last fall but was second-team all-conference in 2019 after finishing fifth in the league with 734 rushing yards, and tied for fifth with seven touchdowns. The 6-foot, 210-pound Foston, a three-star recruit out of Georgia, enrolled at Virginia in January.
When asked about the skill sets of the Wahoos’ running backs, senior center Olu Oluwatimi offered a deeply analytical scouting report.
“They can all boogie,” he said with a wide smile.
“I’d say all of them are really good all-around backs,” Oluwatimi elaborated. “They’ve all shown that they can block first. They got recruited here because they obviously could run the ball. And then they all have sure hands. So the versatility of them being able to do all that and then being interchangeable, and really when anybody comes in there’s no drop-off, that’s very huge.”
“Each and every one of us have our own aspects,” said Taulapapa. “When we come out to do extra work, we all kind of help each other toward what our strengths are, and that’s exciting. To see the versatility in the room, it’s something we haven’t had in such a long time.”
UVa finished ninth in the ACC in rushing at 162.7 yards per game last season. Under Mendenhall and offensive coordinator Robert Anae, only the 2018 team (172.9) has averaged more rush yards per game. But Mendenhall conceded in the spring that he’d like to see the Cavaliers generate more production from ‘traditional’ run plays this year.
The Wahoos’ top rusher in each of the past two seasons has been their starting quarterback: Bryce Perkins (769 yards) in 2019 and Brennan Armstrong (552 yards) last fall. The Hoos got another 234 yards from quarterback/receiver Keytaon Thompson, who is also back with the team this fall.
Six of the team’s top 10 rushers were non-running backs last year. The last four times UVa had a player break 100 yards rushing in a game, it was by a quarterback. Armstrong put up 130 on the ground against Boston College last year, and Perkins did it three times in the final four regular season games 2019.
According to Taulapapa, the coaching staff has been trying to find creative ways to get the team’s deep corps of running backs more involved.
“We’re excited just to help out the team any way we can. Whether it’s lining up as a slot receiver, lining up as a tight end, lining up as a running back,” he said. “You’ll see it as the game comes by. But it’s exciting to see all of us being able to be put in all these different roles.”
“Some games Wayne is gonna have the most carries. Some games another running back is gonna have a lot of carries. It’s kind of who’s the hot hand that game,” said Oluwatimi. “I like that. I like when there’s a lot of backs because it gives safeties and linebackers different people to tackle, which makes it harder on them.”
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