MORGANTOWN - For years now, the conversations one could have with Ja'Juan Seider at this time of the season were about what the West Virginia running backs coach would do with all the players under his watch. He had the embarrassment of riches on the roster, if not in numbers then in talent.
But seasons change and so does the small talk, and this year, as Seider enters the ninth practice of his fourth spring with the Mountaineers, one might wonder what he'll do about having so few players at his disposal.
He does not.
"To be honest, I really haven't noticed and I really don't pay attention to it," he said. "I can manipulate stuff through practice and put people in different spots to take plays off of them. I just worry about what I've got, like a kid who grew up maybe not having a lot. You appreciate what you have and make the best of it. That's my mentality."
Three years ago, Seider had Dustin Garrison and Andrew Buie, the team's leading rushers in 2011 and 2012, and three newcomers. One was Charles Sims, a star at the University of Houston who in one season with WVU was the Big 12's newcomer of the year and a third-round pick by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He arrived with a freshman named Wendell Smallwood and Dreamius Smith, a junior college transfer who won a national title and was first-team all-conference at Butler (Kansas) Community College.
A year later, Smallwood was to emulate Sims, Smith was to be an accomplice and Rushel Shell was ready to play after the can't-miss prospect played at Pitt in 2012 and sat out the following year. Buie and Garrison were still around, too.
Last season, Buie and Garrison departed early, but Smallwood and Shell were back. Donte Thomas-Williams was supposed to be ready after redshirting as a true freshman the year before, and Jacky Marcellus seemed to transition nicely from receiver during the spring.
Today, Shell is maybe better than ever and the best he's been since he stepped on campus. But Smallwood is readying for the NFL draft. Thomas-Williams is banished for the spring, his suspension stemming from conduct detrimental to the team. Marcellus will transfer to find some playing time.
William Crest, once a leading contender to be the quarterback of the future, is spending some time with Seider as well as the receivers. Kennedy McKoy is a freshman who enrolled in January, and Musselman's Deonte Glover and Ridgeley's Brady Watson are walk-ons taking their turns.
Every now and then, Elijah Wellman gets a look, and this is the inevitable extension of the Owen Schmitt experiment the Mountaineers wanted to begin last season so their fullback could develop running-back skills and give the offense something else to flex and defenses something else to consider.
"Now we know he's comfortable doing it," Seider said. "We did a little last year and we did it for the bowl game. It's always something we're going to build on. As much as we get in our big set and motion the back out, everyone wants to chase the back. But now you've got to account for him because we'll hand the ball off to him. That role continues to expand."
It's important for Wellman, and Crest, for that matter, to make the most of the spring, because more bodies arrive in the summer.
Justin Crawford was the national junior college player of the year and a two-time first-team all-America selection at Northwest Mississippi Community College, where he ran for 3,161 yards and 30 touchdowns in his two seasons. Martell Pettaway averaged 150 yards a game in his high school career and last season had 1,629 yards and 22 touchdowns for the state champions at Detroit's Martin Luther King High.
But that's part of the future, not the sort of thing Seider can spend time considering now, especially when the future may already be here. McKoy, a 6-foot, 200-pounder who ran for 2,932 yards and 51 touchdowns in his final two high school seasons in Lexington, North Carolina, has erased Seider's worries. He's already practiced his way into playing time in the fall.
Shell said he's "probably better than Wendell his freshman year." Coach Dana Holgorsen said he's "way, way, way" better than the Mountaineers expected.
"You never think a kid can come in and pick things up as fast as he did," Seider said. "He's like a kid who's been here and redshirted and has been in the program, but he wasn't good enough or you didn't need him to play right away. Now his opportunity is here, and it's like this kid has been here.
"He understands everything we do in the slot, he understands everything we do in the backfield. He's got great ball security. He's not afraid to block. He understands, 'OK, make my identifications, there's who I'm responsible for.' He understands when the offensive line slides and when he has to change his eyes. He may be as far along as any kid I've ever coached."