BLACKSBURG -- His son didn't recognize him.

That stung Darren Evans the most.

It's one thing to sit on the bench for the first time in your football career, but it's quite another to do it hundreds of miles away from the person who matters most in your life.

Homesickness. Is that what you call it?

All Evans knows is the first time little James came to visit him at Virginia Tech, the boy couldn't point out his own father. This bothered Evans more than any questions about his speed or his moves or his place on the Hokies' depth chart. This was unacceptable.

Then in January, after months of calling home and working in visits whenever possible, Evans got off a plane in Indianapolis following Tech's appearance in the Orange Bowl.

His girlfriend, Taneesha Lange, was waiting with 10-month-old James in her arms. She set the boy down, and he ran straight into Evans' embrace.

Evans smiled.

His first season as a Tech tailback had been tougher than he'd envisioned. But things, it seemed, were starting to get better.

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It's Tuesday afternoon at Lane Stadium. Evans' No. 32 jersey, nearly in tatters, clings to his shoulder pads after another long day of practice.

Cuts and bruises decorate his heavily muscled arms. His helmet bears the scars of an arduous spring workload as a Virginia Tech tailback.

For Darren Evans, this is more like it.

He knows contact. Loves it. Missed it.

Back in high school, opponents would shove seven, eight, nine defenders into the box and try to bring him down.

Evans would run through one, around another and eventually away from them all on his way to another touchdown.

He ran for 61 touchdowns his senior year at Warren Central in Indianapolis, the fourth most prolific scoring season in U.S. prep history.

As the thigh bruises and arm scars grew, so did a legend. An assistant coach dubbed Evans the team's ATM -- Automatic Touchdown Machine.

He had a ridiculous six-TD game on only 12 carries against his school's biggest rival. He was named a Parade All-American, the EA Sports National Player of the Year, a bona fide Indiana high school football star.

An ESPN recruiting profile described Evans as "the perfect fit for a power running game."

He left his high school in 2006 with four Class 5A state championships and a slew of individual records.

And then he came to Tech.

And not a lick of it mattered.

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On Saturday, nearly a year after his high school graduation, Evans will finally be the center of attention again.

With a record spring game crowd possible at Lane Stadium, Evans will be among the featured tailbacks in the annual Maroon-White scrimmage.

It is the chance he's been waiting for, borne mostly out of attrition but here nonetheless.

Out of the thousands of fans at Lane Stadium, one will stick out. James, now 14 months old, will watch his father play football for the first time.

James, Lange and numerous other family members plan to fly in Friday for the occasion.

"Hopefully he'll get to see me before the game," Evans said. "One time he came after practice and he looked at me like 'what is all that stuff you're wearing?' Hopefully he'll see me and kind of recognize, 'oh yeah, it is daddy.'

"That's my No. 1 thing right there," Evans said. "When I go home for breaks, I'm all about him."

But breaks are sporadic for a college football player. Evans, who redshirted last season, grew restless as he was forced to go weeks without seeing James.

For him, this was even more difficult than the summer after high school when he worked two jobs to support James and "money always left faster than it came."

"We talked about it a lot," Lange said of last year's homesickness. "He's a great dad. There's not a day that goes by that Darren doesn't call to see how James is doing, what he's eating, how his day went."

Lately, there's been plenty to talk about on both sides.

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The dominoes started to fall on March 19, when projected starting tailback Branden Ore was kicked off the team.

Then came a torn labrum in the left shoulder of backup Kenny Lewis Jr., which required surgery that will sideline him for 4 to 6 months.

On April 12th, Jahre Cheeseman -- the next guy up -- broke his left fibula during a scrimmage that will keep him out for 6 to 8 weeks.

The maelstrom that hit the position bumped Evans up to co-No. 2 on the depth chart with fellow redshirt freshman Josh Oglesby. Both are listed behind senior Dustin Pickle. And while Evans certainly takes no pleasure in the misfortune of the others, he knows this opportunity is huge.

"I didn't think Kenny was going to have his surgery, and nobody would ever guess Cheeseman would break his leg," Evans said, shaking his head. "It has made me realize that this game is going to be real big for me, because I can really move my name up there and people can say, 'He wasn't just talk coming out of high school.'"

Evans has heard those whispers. Not fast enough. Not enough moves. All stats, minimum upside.

He heard those things during recruiting, too, when Tech was the only school from a BCS conference outside of the Big Ten that offered him a scholarship.

"It doesn't bother me to where I lose sleep over it," Evans said of the talk. "But it just makes me want to work harder."

The 6-foot, 215-pound Evans increased his maximum bench press to 340 pounds this offseason, and he's constantly working to improve his blocking.

Even before Cheeseman's injury, Evans was the leading rusher in Tech's first scrimmage on April 5, and he paced the contenders with 45 yards on seven carries in the penultimate scrimmage Tuesday.

He hopes these are the first steps toward being an active part of Billy Hite's stable come August.

"I kind of thought if I worked hard enough, maybe I could earn a spot [last year], but I never counted on it," Evans said.

"Of course, after playing all your life and never really sitting, it did hurt a lot. If there's one thing I really know the best, it is football. If somebody kind of tells you you're not good enough to play right now, that hurts your pride. That hurts your feelings. That had a lot to do with my homesickness and missing James."

Hope thrives now.

Lange, who is working two jobs in Indianapolis and plans to attend college, said she hopes she and James can move to Blacksburg by August.

Either way, they'll have Saturday together -- a much more exciting Saturday than originally thought.

No doubt the boy will recognize Evans.

A lot more people might soon, too.