Under stadium lights, in a packed house, and with the game on the line, it’s easy to look on the field and see who the heroes are. It’s the thread-the-needle pass. The diving catch. The interception. The goal line stop. On paper, it’s completions, yards after contact, long-range field goals, sacks. You know who no one’s thinking about? The walk-on player who’s been on the team for four years, but who has never seen playing time on the field.
For fourth-year Virginia Cavaliers safety CJ Epps, so goes the past three years. A preferred walk-on in 2015, he took a redshirt season his first year due to injury, and did not appear in any games in 2016 or 2017.