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Miami running game in disarray

Haywood forced to deal with many changes on RB depth chart behind Merriweather.

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By Pete Conrad, Staff Writer Updated 8:28 AM Tuesday, August 31, 2010

OXFORD — Senior Thomas Merriweather has solidified his position as Miami University’s No. 1 tailback, but there doesn’t seem to be anything stable about the other RedHawks at that position.

Merriweather’s backup has been suspended, two true freshmen have moved into a position where they could see playing time in the opener at Florida on Saturday, Sept. 4, and a tailback-turned-fullback has turned back into a tailback.

Some call this chaos. For Miami football coach Michael Haywood, it’s just another week in the life of a depth chart that has seen more re-shuffling than a blackjack table at Caesars Palace.

“Merriweather has really stepped up and separated himself from everybody in the running back crew,” Haywood said on Monday, Aug. 30, in the first of his regular-season weekly news conferences.

Summer practice has not been a smooth ride for Merriweather, especially during the first week when he took some hard jolts from his teammates on defense, including one which forced him to miss about an hour of workouts. But he keeps coming back for more.

Meanwhile, sophomore Danny Green, who has been the second-string tailback for most of the summer, will not make the trip to Florida.

“We’ve moved Roman Lawson back to tailback with the suspension of Daniel Green due to a violation of team rules,” Haywood said.

The Miami coach did not elaborate on the infraction.

“Roman Lawson has looked pretty good the last couple days at tailback,” Haywood said of the 6-foot, 235-pound sophomore who started against Northern Illinois last fall and totaled an impressive 104 total yards — 78 receiving and 26 rushing.

This year, Lawson had been switched to fullback.

“He was falling down the depth chart at fullback,” Haywood noted. “We gave him the ball the other day in a scrimmage and once again he came alive at tailback, so we’re just going to leave him at tailback and see how he performs, because he wasn’t performing up to winning potential while he was playing fullback.”

Still, Lawson will likely have to wait his turn.

True freshman Tracy Woods has moved to No. 2 at tailback and another true freshman, Orne Bey, is listed at third string.

Haywood likes what he has seen from his improvised group of ballcarriers.

“We’re running the ball a lot better,” he said. “I just got through watching practice. We had nine guys in the box on defense and we were still able to break a few runs. I think we’re getting better at running the football.”

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2197 or pconrad@coxohio.com.

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