The Roanoke Times

File 2007 Virginia Tech's Macho Harris will try to build on his 2007 All-ACC season by being available to play both ways in 2008.

BLACKSBURG -- No wonder they call this guy "Macho."

Playing a game that wasn't made for the meek in any form or fashion, Virginia Tech's Victor Harris has his muscles flexed and is jacked about taking on big-time college football from all angles this fall.

On defense, he's been there and done that. Harris was a first-team All-ACC cornerback last season.

On special teams? How about this for a huge return? He hauled one to the house from 105 yards -- the NCAA doesn't add the change on returns from longer 100 yards -- last season at Georgia Tech.

Now comes offense.

Let's do it, the man says.

"I can't wait. I can do it," said Harris, after his first official practice at wide receiver in Tech's first spring workout Wednesday.

Harris, the biggest name left on a defense shredded by the loss of seven graduated starters and now laced with a bundle of youth, is not bailing.

However, when Hokies coach Frank Beamer asked him about what he thought about helping out Tech's young receiver corps this fall, Harris never flinched.

"Coach Beamer told me when he was recruiting me that I was definitely going to get the opportunity," Harris recalled. "Now I'm trying to take advantage of it."

So what if he butter-fingered one deep ball dead in his hands Wednesday. Hey, Harris still won. He caught two bombs, burning a couple of his defensive back buddies.

Harris, who will work at flanker for five more practices before finishing the spring's final nine practices on defense, laughed when the drop was noted.

"I'm just getting in the swing of things," the 6-foot, 195-pound former Parade All-American at Richmond's Highland Springs High said. "Catch me about the third practice. I'll probably won't drop a one."

Got to love this guy. There's nothing he thinks can't do on a football field.

"The busier the better, that's how I feel," Harris said.

"I'm doing whatever I can to help the team. If they need me to play punter or long snapper, I would do it."

Defensively, Harris still plans on being one of the nation's best corners at Brandon Flowers' old boundary spot this fall.

He still plans on returning kicks of all sorts. And, if he can get his hands on the ball some more on offense, the more the merrier.

"Right now, I would say probably like 10 to 12 snaps on offense [per game]," Harris said. "Whether they give me the ball or not ... if they need for me to be a decoy, so be it. I can do it."

The Hokies are just glad to have Macho back. Harris applied to enter next April's NFL Draft, only to withdraw his name before the NFL's mid-January deadline. It would have been a double blow for Tech, which lost Flowers a year early to the NFL. Flowers is being projected by many draft experts as a first-round pick.

"I felt it was my time to go at one moment," Harris said. "But I got on my hands and knees when the time was coming, and the Lord gave me direction to come back to school.

"Besides, I love it here. The cash register can ring for Brandon right now. That can wait. It's going to come for me. I have no regrets. I'm ready to help the team, ready to excel and have fun.

"Right now, I've got a lot of other stuff to do."

Video: Hokie football 2007