For a West Virginia defense that was already dealing with replacing eight starters from a season ago, the Mountaineers received another major blow when junior free safety Dravon Askew-Henry was ruled out for the season due to a knee injury.

Askew-Henry has started all 26 career games since stepping foot on campus as a highly regarded prospect out of Aliquippa. He was expected to be one of the leaders in the secondary for West Virginia and was the top returning option for the Mountaineers at his position.

Henry was the leading returning tackler from last season’s defense with 59 tackles and an interception, while he finished with 45 tackles during his true freshman season with two interceptions.

The injury occurred in practice Wednesday and this is the second major injury to a member of the West Virginia secondary in the last two seasons after Karl Joseph suffered a season-ending knee injury last fall.

“This is a tremendous loss for our football team,” head coach Dana Holgorsen said. “Without a doubt Dravon was one of our leaders on and off the field. We will support him through his recovery and work with him to get him 100 percent back to health.”

Henry ran with the first team throughout fall camp and his replacement now will come through a mixture of junior college safety Toyous Avery, former walk-on Khairi Shariff or several others.

Senior safety Jeremy Tyler also could potentially slide over from his role at bandit and SPUR to fill the hole in the Mountaineers defense.

Henry joins redshirt sophomore defensive lineman Jaleel Fields (knee) and freshman cornerback Jacob Long (shoulder) as players with season ending injuries, while redshirt junior Xavier Pegues (shoulder) is expected to return in late October.