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BRIAN LANDMANTop college football teams are splitting carries between top running backs with good results.
TALLAHASSEE - For Florida State tailbacks Leon Washington and Lorenzo Booker, it began while watching a replay of last year's dramatic overtime win against North Carolina State.
They vividly saw just how effective the running game could, heck, should be.
The two combined for 193 of the team's season-best 272 yards and two touchdowns, including Washington's 12-yard run to end the game. That came one week after the Seminoles gained just 11 yards on the ground at Clemson, the sixth time they had failed to reach 100 that season.
"That's the game I look back to, and that's the game he and I looked back to when we were in that room and said, "See. That's how we need to run the ball,' " Booker said.
"We told each other then," Washington added, "that it was going to take us to carry this team to the national championship, and it has to be true. We cannot win games without running the ball."
The key word there?
We.
The No. 7-ranked Seminoles and No. 6 Virginia, who meet tonight at Doak Campbell Stadium in one of the biggest ACC games of the season and one of the biggest in league history, come at folks with a tailback tandem.
In step with a growing trend, especially among some of the national elite, the Seminoles and Cavaliers have a No. 1 and No. 1A in the backfield who offer different running styles but similar results. Washington, a junior who is more of a see-the-hole-and-go back, averages a team-leading 108.2 yards on 14 carries and has five touchdowns. Booker, a sophomore who'll unleash a dizzying array of moves, averages 74.2 yards on 15 attempts and has scored one touchdown.
"They're both dangerous backs," FSU coach Bobby Bowden said. "When one comes out and the other goes in (fresh), there hasn't been a drop-off."
The Cavaliers effectively rotate 21-year-old Wali Lundy (96.8 yards, 10 touchdowns), a 5-10, 214-pound junior, and 22-year-old Alvin Pearman (48.8 yards, five scores), a 5-9, 204-pound senior, keeping both fresh and, they hope, healthy throughout a long season of games and practices.
"There are a lot of teams that seem to be doing it," Virginia coach Al Groh said, mentioning No. 1 Southern California and No. 2 Oklahoma. "Obviously, college football with its roster twice as big as an NFL roster lends itself to that. In college football, you don't have any salary cap to deal with. The Jets can't afford to have two Curtis Martins on their team. It would be prohibited financially. If they did, they probably would both play. In this particular case in college football, it's very viable to do so and it makes sense."
If you have quality players, in body and spirit.
Ask any athlete, regardless of sport or position, and he's going to say he wants to be the guy. First string. But if you're trying to play two tailbacks equally (and Virginia is also trying to give sophomore Michael Johnson some work), each has to be selfless.
"If we had a beef amongst each other or animosity or anything like that, it wouldn't work," Washington, 22, said.
A mutual respect is also a must.
"I'm pretty sure he has people who are like, "Man, you should be the only guy,' just like I've got people where I'm from (in California) telling me I should be the only guy or say, "That guy can't do this (or that),' " Booker, 20, said.
He knows his teammate could be the guy most anywhere else and vice versa.
"A lot of people, not even just teammates, don't have that," Booker said. "With that being said and that deep amount of respect we have, nobody can tell us something to make us feel a certain way. We know the deal."
Sometimes, one might have the better statistical day and the other can't get jealous. The 5-9, 202-pound Washington is coming off 153- and 164-yard performances. In Virginia's last game, against Clemson, Pearman had the final 17 carries and finished with a team-high 104 yards and two touchdowns.
Still, they pull for one another.
Still, they push one another.
"We're all extremely competitive athletes," Pearman said. "Literally, every day, we compete with each other. I remember in high school I could take practices off. But now, it's the kind of thing where we go hard every day and push each other, and we've continued to get better through our time here."
The 5-11, 195-pound Booker recalls seeing Washington in the weight room squat 365 pounds 10 times, and he hadn't planned to do one.
"Because he did, I had to do it," Booker said, laughing. "It's competition, but it works in a positive aspect. A lot of times, that can tear down a team because the guys may get discouraged because of it, but we let it power (us)."
"Like (Saturday) night, I was running the ball pretty well and he was like, "Man, keep running,' " Washington added. "The same thing goes for him when he's running and he's making first downs. I'm like, "Keep running hard.' It's going to take that from me and him to help us get to the national championship."