Former Eagle Wilbert Montgomery helps Temple product Bernard Pierce develop as a runner

NEW ORLEANS - When Wilbert Montgomery ran for 194 yards against the Cowboys in the 1980 NFC championship game, few remember that his backup, Leroy Harris, had a pretty good game, too.

Harris rushed for 60 yards on 10 carries and scored the Eagles second touchdown when he lumbered for 12 yards in the third quarter. Montgomery's scintillating 42-yard burst to open the scoring on that frigid Philadelphia day will always be remembered as a peak moment in the franchise's history.

But Harris played an important part in getting the Eagles to their first Super Bowl. Thirty-two years later, despite the advances in the NFL passing game, teams still need two running backs or more.

The Eagles could feature more of a two-back system next season with LeSean McCoy in the lead role and Bryce Brown, who excelled when McCoy was out with a concussion, as his sidekick.

"You have to have two, possibly three running backs in the mix of your whole scheme," said Montgomery, now the Ravens running backs coach. "This is not a one running back league now because you get beat up so much that your star running back is going to take a lot of licks."

Baltimore is a win away from their second Super Bowl title for many reasons, but the development of rookie Bernard Pierce late in the season and through the playoffs has given the Ravens a complement to all-pro running back Ray Rice.

"Bernard Pierce has just been a guy that has lit it up for us this year," Ravens coach John Harbaugh said. "We liked him a lot, but I don't think we thought he'd be this good of a player. The two styles contrast perfectly."

Montgomery said that when Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome came to him looking for a running back they could get after the first round, he mentioned Pierce, the Ardmore-born Temple product. He had him ranked behind Alabama's Trent Richardson and Boise State's Doug Martin.

Pierce ended up being the seventh running back selected when the Ravens picked him in the third round.

"He does things that you don't coach," Montgomery said. "You have to define his game for him. I said, 'This guy is more explosive between the first 20 yards than any back that I've seen since Edgerrin James.' "

Pierce got off to a slow start. He ran for 179 yards on 42 carries through his first nine games. But he finished strong, rushing for 353 yards on 66 totes in his last six games of the regular season. In three playoff games, he has run for 169 yards on 27 carries.

Pierce credits Montgomery with his late surge.

"He's the greatest coach," Pierce said. "He has a different way of handling his players. He's not one of those hard-nosed, get-in-your-face, curse-you-out-type guys. He tries to work with you. He worked me a lot at the beginning of the season. I started to come along late, but once I started getting everything down, I started playing faster."

Except for a three-year stint as the Rams' tight ends coach, Montgomery, 58, has been coaching running backs in the NFL since 1997. But he has never risen above a position coach despite aspirations to become a coordinator or head coach.

Harbaugh sang his praises this week, calling him a "rising star," but Montgomery knows that the NFL is increasingly becoming a young coaches' league.

"You have those dreams . . . and you work toward that," Montgomery said. "And when it happens, it happens. But when it don't happen you just kind of move on. I thought the window for me to be a head coach or a coordinator, it's passed me by."

There once was a time when nothing could pass him. Harbaugh brought up the fact that Montgomery was once considered the fastest human being in the world. Montgomery and his brother, Cleotha, were track stars growing up in Greenville, Miss., and then at Abilene Christian University.

Montgomery estimated he and his brother were running 9.3-second 100-yard dashes in the early 1970s, when they and others laid claim to fastest man status.

"It was just the time," he said. "We were running on cinders. It was whoever had the fastest time that week [had] probably been the fastest man."

Montgomery would go on to set a number of NAIA football records at Abilene. The Eagles selected him in the sixth round of the 1977 draft. He was an all-pro running back in 1978 and 1979 and stuck a dagger into the Cowboys with his iconic dash at Veterans Stadium a year later.

"People remember that run, and they put that run up on the top of the list," Montgomery said. "To me, it's amazing because there's been some tremendous runs."