Doug Smock: Walk-on Mathews just hoping for a shot

HUNTINGTON — If you’re a football walk-on, you have to love the game. You can’t just tell sportswriters you love the game, you have to genuinely love it.

You have to outwork the rest of your position room, you must be uncommonly football-savvy, and you must walk that line between hunger and patience.

Such is the life of Nick Mathews, the sophomore wide receiver from Haymarket, Virginia. Listed at 5-foot-10, 169 pounds, he was too small, too slow to be offered a major-college scholarship. He walked on at Marshall to chase his dream.

From his first practice in August camp, Mathews has been a slot receiver. My attention can stray in the day-to-day grind of preseason camp, but I am hard-pressed to…