INSTITUTE, West Virginia -- Fewer debuts for West Virginia State’s football team have gone better than running back Calil Wilkins’ in 2017. It was award-winning.Wilkins finished the season – one where the Yellow Jackets finished with a winning record for the first time since 2008 – as the Mountain East Offensive Freshman of the Year. Yet he looks at his debut as just that – a beginning.
The bar, both for him and the Yellow Jackets, has been set higher. And Wilkins wants to show the conference how much he has grown starting with his first game of the season, Thursday’s 7 p.m. tilt versus cross-county rival University of Charleston at UC Stadium.
“Motivation, that’s the main thing,” Wilkins said of his freshman season. “I feel like it motivated me to do more. I want to do everything I can.”
Wilkins entered a backfield that already had a productive Juawan Etheredge and Dionta Brown and asserted himself as the featured running back. He finished the year with a team-high 819 yards – ranked fourth in the MEC and fourth among all Division II freshmen – and an average of 6.1 yards per carry, adding five touchdowns. He also caught 19 passes for 141 yards and two touchdowns.
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