Coming into this week’s game at Temple, East Carolina is making good use of a talented pair of freshman running backs in Rahjai Harris and Keaton Mitchell.
At 5-10, 228 Harris has had a stellar campaign with 559 yards in seven games thus far. His biggest game was in a close 27-23 home loss to Navy where Harris rushed for 172 yards including a memorable 80 yard touchdown run. That did a lot to pick up the slack of Holton Ahlers being out on Covid19 protocol. The Duncan, S.C. freshman is averaging 3.8 yards every time he touches the ball heading into this Saturday’s game against Temple.
Mitchell’s emergence has come more recently with his breakout game coming last week at Cincinnati. The 5-9, 181 freshman out of McDonough, Ga. rushed for 124 yards and a one touchdown in the 55-17 loss to Cincinnati. He is averaging just under five yards per clip to go along with 9 pass receptions for 67 yards including his longest of 26 yards. Mitchell is averaging 7.4 per catch this season out of the backfield.
Veteran ECU offensive coordinator Donnie Kirkpatrick likes what both are doing so far and sees the pair of freshmen as the future at running back for the Pirates.
“We’d love to have the thunder and lightning combination. We had that at the last place I was at the year we won the national championship we had two backs that we could roll in there,” said Kirkpatrick, “I think you see a lot of the teams who can run the ball well around the country.”
“That’s the dream to do that. We kind of kid them, one of them goes in and says anything he can do, I can do better so they compete in a friendly rivalry type deal. They are very good complements to each other. One is bigger and one is maybe a little smaller and quicker type guy, but they both can play and both can catch the ball out of the backfield.”
With inexperience comes a bit of a learning curve and that is a process that is still ongoing at the moment.
“They both are young and they both have to learn to play without the ball a little bit better. They got exposed in pass protection last week. That was some of the issue right there when they (Cincinnati) brought their guy that you have to pick up and they got beat, but they are two good young men and their future is bright.”
“I think they are the future here that we will build this team around,” Kirkpatrick stated, “We will rotate them. It kind of depends on if one of them gets hot a little bit sometimes but a little bit of it is just how the game is going because if you have long drives, you’re going to sub a little bit more in there. If a guy gets a long run then you’re going to call for a substitution.”
“When you don’t move the ball then you don’t sub as much. We really haven’t laid out a number of carries or how many plays but we plan to play them both a lot.”
At a respectable 167 yards per game, the Pirates currently rank 75th in the country.
East Carolina travels to Philadelphia this Saturday for a high noon kickoff with Temple. Both teams have just one win and a victory could be the difference in 9th place and 11th with one game remaining in the hotly contested AAC.
