(I posted this blog from Mountain West media days last week, but it somehow disappeared. Since there’s a 99 percent chance I screwed it up somehow and it never appeared, I figured I’d just repost it, especially after writing about the physical style of the fullbacks for Gazette.com today. And if you saw it before, just consider it a classic that needed to be posted again):

Most folks have questions about Air Force’s fullback position. There’s almost no experience returning at fullback, which is a key cog in the Falcons’ offense.

Defensive end Zach Payne has seen Wesley Cobb and Mike DeWitt, the top two candidates to fill that spot, firsthand in practice and said there is no need for concern.

“I’ve never hit anyone as hard as I’ve hit those two,” Payne said. “When they hit you, you feel it.”

Cobb doesn’t look like a bruising fullback, and said during the spring he wants to put on some weight. He is a converted tailback. That is misleading though, Payne said.

“He’s got big legs, and those legs keep churning too,” Payne said. “He’s tough to tackle. He’s a bowling ball coming through there.”

And if Payne is right about DeWitt, the combination of fullbacks could wear down defenses over the course of the game.

“Mike just hits hard,” Payne said. “We play against our option in practice, and the end has to take the fullback a lot of times. You see that play coming, you see DeWitt in the backfield and you think, ‘OK, this one is going to feel good.’

Cobb and DeWitt will get tested in training camp. Air Force coach Troy Calhoun said a freshman could end up being a significant contributor at fullback, and he said he has three freshman candidates in mind. The competition is wide open, so another veteran who is off the radar now could work his way up the depth chart.

Jared Tew, Nathan Walker and Ryan Southworth combined to top 1,000 yards last season at the fullback position, so the bar is set high for the new fullbacks. If it is Cobb and DeWitt, Payne thinks they can produce at a similar level to last year’s senior trio.

“I think they can,” Payne said. “They’re young, they haven’t gotten out there much, but they’ve played big-time high school ball, they’ve practiced with us for two years now, they’ve got it down. They’ll be fine.”

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