After battling through injuries and working his way back, Eli Stove feels comfortable.

In 2019, his first year back from injury, Stove had 37 catches for 321 yards and three touchdowns, along with seven carries for 57 yards and a touchdown.

Through six games in 2020, though, Stove already has 21 catches for 201 and three touchdowns, with five carries for 40 yards.

This season, he’s earned the mantra: “Eli. Equals. Stability.”

“Really just, you know, the other team has to focus on all three of us. And the running backs and the quarterbacks. They just got to look at everybody,” Stove said. “They can’t guard everybody, so they just have to figure out what they’re going to game plan around. So that’s crazy. But stability, for me, how I feel is, like, I get the job done. If they need me on third down – whatever they need me to do, I’ll get it done to the best of my ability.”

Stove is a natural wide receiver and only has five carries on the season, but he has some natural running back abilities, averaging 10 yards a carry in his career.

While Stove is listed as wide receiver, he also thinks of himself as a running back.

“Nah, I don’t, but I think I’m a running back anyway,” Stove said about whether or not he’s considered becoming a running back. “Running back-receiver. I’ll take it. But I didn’t know that, though. That’s crazy. I didn’t know that.”

As for the actual running backs on the roster, there success running the ball helps Stove and the receivers immensely.

“It just opens up things, you know, like deep-ball game, intermediate play and short balls,” Stove said. “It really just opens us up and spreads the offense out a little bit, just so it's kind of hard to focus on -- the defense to focus on us running the ball, never know when we're going to throw the ball deep, or have RPO stuff and stuff like that. So it really just opens up everything.”

For the fifth-year senior, just having the opportunity to get more involved in the offense this season has been enjoyable.

“It’s pretty fun,” Stove said about getting involved in the offense more. “We’ve been spreading the ball around and everybody is having fun getting the ball. We’re doing pretty good with it. Big plays are coming.”

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