Dwayne Harris feature

When Chris Johnson left ECU for the NFL in 2008, a huge chunk of the Pirates' all-purpose yards and touchdowns left with him.

Filling the void left by the now Tennessee Titan playmaker has since been a problem for the Pirate offensive attack; that is until now.

Enter Dwayne Harris.

The junior wide receiver has become a consistent threat to score from anywhere on the field and is stepping into the role vacated by Johnson.

Harris leads the team with nine touchdowns this season, which also ranks second in Conference USA, but it's the variety in which he scores them that makes him such an exciting player. He has scored four times on the ground, three times through the air and twice returning kickoffs. He's even thrown the ball twice with one completion.

It's that kind of versatility that has led ECU's coaches to find ways to get him more involved.

"He's just a guy that we know when we put the ball in his hands, good things are going to happen," said ECU offensive coordinator Todd Fitch.

And putting the ball in his hands is exactly what they have done. Harris leads the team in all-purpose yards by a long shot in averaging almost 157 per game. Likewise, Harris himself is not particular in the manner that he gets the ball as long as he gets it often.

"It is always good to have the ball in your hands," Harris said. "I play different roles in the offense and it just gives me more opportunities to go out there and make plays for the team. The coaches try to get me the ball as much as they can, and try to help the team out as much as I can."

Coach Fitch wasn't coy about the coaches' effort to get Harris involved in the offense as much as possible either.

"We always try to highlight the attributes of a player like [Harris] who can make big plays for our offense and provide a spark from anywhere on the field," Fitch said. "With his skill-set we can line him up in several positions and use him effectively."

Using Harris effectively is something Fitch admitted varies from game to game depending on the opponent.

"Every week, we go in and depending on who we are playing, we'll plug him in at different places in the game plan," Fitch said.

In fact, one of the biggest problems the coaching staff has run into is using Harris too much.

"The biggest thing is keeping him fresh during the course of a game," Fitch said. "We want to use him, but obviously if we use him too much he gets gassed, and since he's one of our main threats on third down, we like to keep him fresh for when we need him."

As for this weekend, wherever the coaching staff decides to use him, Harris has a particular match-up he's looking forward to.

"Going up against Kam Chancellor is going to be exciting," Harris said about Virginia Tech's free safety. "Kam is a good friend of mine. We had a good game and a good battle last year, and it's just always fun to go up against people you know."

He wasn't the only one in the ECU camp to talk about Chancellor this week. During this week's press luncheon, Head Coach Skip Holtz addressed the Hokies' free safety as well.

"At 6-foot-4 and 230 pounds, [Chancellor] is bigger than any linebacker we have on our roster. When you look at him as a free safety running down the field and the way he can cover ground, that's impressive. When they put him in the middle, you also have to know where he is as a quarterback because if you lay the ball up in the air too long, he's either going to snatch it or make the receiver pay dearly. He's a great free safety roaming the middle."

You can bet that Chancellor and Harris will be seeing plenty of each other up and down the field, which is going to make for a very exciting game Thursday night when the Hokies travel to Greenville.

"It's going to be a hard-fought game," Harris said. "We are going to go out and play our game, and hopefully everything will fall into place."

This writer can be contacted at sports@theeastcarolinian.com.