EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. -- The job certainly has changed since Kirby Wilson started.

When Wilson left the Pittsburgh Steelers last winter to become the Minnesota Vikings' running backs coach and work with offensive coordinator Norv Turner, he was also counting on one very sizable perk: the opportunity to work with Adrian Peterson, who had taken almost every carry for the Vikings when he was healthy over the last seven seasons and who figured to be a prominent part of the team's offense again.

"I'm human," Wilson said. "I would have loved an opportunity to see what we could have done together, and as a football team. You sit back, you just say, 'God has given me a tremendous opportunity to work with and develop some new players.' I flipped the script very fast when it came to that, because that excited me to develop two more guys that hadn't really done it."

Instead of coaching a former league MVP, Wilson is working with a running back who had 47 carries before this season (Matt Asiata) and a converted triple-option college quarterback (Jerick McKinnon), trying to remake a ground game that has been the focal point of the team's offense since Brad Childress was the head coach. To this point, that process has been bumpy; the Vikings have run for 534 yards in the five games Peterson's missed, but 241 of those came in a 41-28 win over the Atlanta Falcons on Sept. 28. In the four other games -- all losses - the Vikings ran for 54, 59, 111 and 69 yards, at a time where their offense could use some balance to help rookie quarterback Teddy Bridgewater.

The task will remain difficult this weekend as the Vikings face the league's top-ranked run defense. They plan to use both running backs after featuring McKinnon last week, believing they'll fare better with Asiata and McKinnon's complementary styles, but the riddle of how to replace Peterson remains one the Vikings haven't solved yet.

"You're not going to have the dynamic, explosive, spectacular runs and plays that you get out of a player of [Peterson's] magnitude," Wilson said. "We definitely miss that element, but we've moved on to a certain degree."

Wilson said the adjustment has been the largest for McKinnon, who got his first true snaps as a running back at postseason college all-star games and is still learning the fundamentals of the position. "He definitely had no clue as to what's next when [Peterson was indicted on child abuse charges]," Wilson said. "He was probably in more of a shock mode than Matt, but he's done a good job since the initial shock of it all.

"You never want to put the most pressure on the guy with the least amount of experience. You never want to do that. But he's handled it quite well."

McKinnon, who ran for 135 yards in Week 4 and gained 82 all-purpose yards last week, admitted the process of becoming a featured running back has been a "whirlwind," but said he feels like he's becoming more consistent, and while the Vikings want to get Asiata more carries this week, it seems as though McKinnon will be the primary back. He fits well in the read-option looks the Vikings had initially planned in order to spread defenses out and keep them from stacking the box against Peterson. McKinnon can bring back some of the explosive plays the Vikings have been missing in the run game.

Whatever the Vikings do, it likely won't replace what they had in Peterson. Wilson said he still texts Peterson once a week, to let him know he's thinking about him, and it doesn't take long before his admiration for Peterson's on-field work comes up in a conversation.

But until -- or unless -- Peterson returns, the Vikings' running game remains an unknown commodity.

"We're still trying to find out what it's going to be," Wilson said. "We're still trying to massage our way through this right now."