ASU’s Cameron Marshall off to slow start
Sep 17, 2012, 7:58 PM | Updated: 8:59 pm
Before the season began, head coach Todd Graham said he wanted to get his senior running back — and team captain, Cameron Marshall 30 carries a game.
The idea made sense.
Marshall was coming off a 2011 campaign in which he became the 16th Sun Devil to top the 1,000-yard mark in a season while his 18 touchdowns were not only a career-high but tied the school single-season record.
Those marks landed Marshall on the watch list for the Doak Walker Award, which is presented annually to the nation’s top college running back.
Yet, through three games Marshall has 25 attempts for 81 yards.
He’s not among the Top 275 players who have carried the football; and on his own team, he’s the fourth-leading rusher.
“He’s a guy we want to get the ball to,” Graham said Monday during his weekly press conference. He then added Marshall “missed a lot of practice in preseason camp. He had a hamstring that was bothering him. It’s kind of slowed the development a little bit.”
Saturday against Missouri, Marshall touched the football four times but not once in the fourth quarter. Instead, the Sun Devils used D.J. Foster and Marion Grice — who scored twice, out of the backfield.
“We want to get the ball to whoever we got to get it to to win games,” Graham said.
Moving forward, however, Graham acknowledged a desire to put the football back in Marshall’s hands.
“We no doubt want to get him more involved in what we’re doing and get him going.”
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