And I mean that literally. According to the tested fullback, he hasn’t fumbled the ball in close to a year — could be more, could be less, but he’s not entirely sure … and I’ll get to why that matters.

As best as he can remember, he had a few bobbles early in the 2011 spring practice and those preceded Dana Holgorsen’s very public, very covered “or else” warning, and that came before a Robert Gillespie-coerced fumble in a subsequent practice.

Since then? Nothing.

Well, nothing, except an asterisk.

“I don’t feel like I got the ball again after that,” he said.

I’m going to believe that. He didn’t carry once last season, so I’m inclined to believe they didn’t practice giving him carries he was never going to get in a game. And on top of that, it seemed to be big news whenever Clarke did fumble, so if it happened during a regular-season practice, it probably would have been mentioned in a press conference.

Of course, Clarke’s fumbles were newsworthy for other reasons, too. Other, awful reasons. The timing for some couldn’t have been worse.

One on his goal line at LSU set up the Tigers for a momentous touchdown in 2010. One later that season on UConn’s goal line in overtime conspired to give the Mountaineers their first ever loss against the Huskies and … let me be careful here and say I’m not at all blaming Clarke for this … to cost Bill Stewart his job.

He knows the score. He knows what he’s been through and why he did so little last season. He also knows he’s in line to do a whole lot more in 2010 for WVU. He can’t change his past. He can make sure it doesn’t repeat in the future.

“I don’t want to say it was my motivation, but that was a big part of it because I feel like I can do multiple things in the offense,” he said. “So if that’s what I need to do, I’ll prove it. If that’s what I have to do to get my chance, I’m going to do it.”

All he has to do now is hang on – and Clarke knows people are looking for him to drop the ball.

“They’ve been coming at me since spring practice started, but I got focused on that during last season, and even though I wasn’t getting the ball, I was still working on ball security and strips with drills and trying to take advantage of if the best I could,” he said. “So far, it’s worked out.”