A familiar face has joined the Chadron State College football coaching staff. Shawn Eisenreich, the Eagles' starting quarterback from 2002 through 2004, is the running backs coach after John Reiners moved to Black Hills State to become a Yellow Jackets' assistant.

Eisenreich, a native of Gordon, Neb., coached the running backs at Winona State for the past two years while working on his master's degree at the Minnesota school. He will receive his degree in May and remain at CSC to help coach football this fall.

Both years he was at Winona, the Warriors had a 1,000-yard rusher. He said as a former quarterback, he has a special appreciation for what running backs do and enjoys working with them.

In his new job, Eisenreich has plenty of contenders to work with this spring. Nine players are candidates to carry the ball and that doesn't include the Eagles' three most experienced running backs, who are expected to join the fray in the fall.

The latter trio consists of seniors-to-be Aaron Cooksley and Mark Haag, both of whom are still recovering from injuries they sustained last fall and can't have contact this spring. John Ritzen, the Chadron native who led the Eagles in rushing last fall with 592 yards and is a jumper for the track and field team and is not participating in spring football.

That leaves sophomore-to-be Evan Pilkington as the only experienced ball carrier in pads this spring. He rushed 65 times for 298 yards and caught eight passes for 60 yards last fall during the Eagles' 11-2 season.

Another sophomore, Maurice Threatts, carried the ball 16 times for 76 yards last fall, but he was a true freshman and saw limited action at the line of scrimmage. Threatts was still a valuable team member. He set a school record by returning 18 kickoffs for an average of 32.4 yards and earned first-team all-conference honors. He returned both a punt and a kickoff for touchdowns last fall.

The other tailbacks are redshirt freshmen or transfers. The redshirts are Anton Harris, Todd McCormick and Joel Woodhead. Two transfers came to CSC in January: Jeff Miles and Alex Rodriguez.

The array of running backs also includes two players who are expected to play fullback. They are sophomore Brett Gumb, a standout on special teams last fall, and Louie Bruketta, who transferred to CSC last fall after playing one year at South Dakota School of Mines.

Since the Eagles have had just three practices because two snowstorms have left their fields too sloppy to use this week, Eisenreich is still getting acquainted with his charges, but he said it appears that as a group they have "a lot of speed, a lot of talent and they seem to catch on fast."

"It's way too early to tell who'll be playing this fall, but by the end of spring we expect to have a pretty good idea," he said.