Back and battling, Ferns is always around the ball
Brendan Ferns was well on his way to playing time this time last year on defense when the unexpected hit.
Ferns, who had worked his way into a role as the backup middle linebacker for West Virginia with an impressive camp, tore his ACL in practice and before it had even begun his season was over.
Now a year removed, Ferns is back in a very similar situation.
Serving as the fourth linebacker for the Mountaineers and again right behind starter Al-Rasheed Benton in the middle, Ferns is primed to see the field. He’s also cross trained and has the ability to slide over to the other two linebacker spots if needed, too.
Coming back isn’t an easy road – but Ferns hit it head on and without hesitation.
Although it happened in August, Ferns was two-months ahead of schedule in his recovery not long after the surgery was performed. That put him in position to be back on the field for spring drills.
An essential key to where he is now in regards to his overall development. Because while not the road he would have chosen to miss time with an injury, the redshirt year allowed him to improve in other areas and then apply that on the field over the course of the 15-practices.
The man that works in front of him, Benton, has taken notice.
“I think what the year did for him was allow him to get to another level where now he’s not just able to play but he’s able to dominate,” Benton said. “It helped him get faster, get stronger.”
Ferns has always had the mental aspect of the game down. A highly intelligent player on and off the field, Ferns also is equipped with excellent size at 6-foot-2, 230-pounds. But he’s also been able to match those skills to more strength as well as a comfort level with his assignments.
“He just had to get comfortable,” Benton said.
Assistant Mark Scott works with the linebackers and has seen Ferns improvement just from the spring throughout the course of fall camp. He has confidence both in his knee and the ins and outs of the defense, which takes a lot of the thinking out of the equation.
It makes for a fast player, playing faster and much more relaxed.
“Ferns has looked good. Really good,” Scott said.
Equipped with natural instincts, Ferns has stood out in large part because he finds his way to the ball with his combination of his size and length. But perhaps the most underrated aspect of his game is his overall ability to run and close on the football.
“He always seems to find his way around the ball,” Scott said.
The assistant coach has been highly impressed with Ferns ability to do it all. He has displayed the strength to take on offensive linemen with his hands and shed the blocks to make the plays in the hole while on the next play running down a ball carrier from behind on a play designed to the outside.
That type of versatility is hard to come by and is part of what makes the ceiling for Ferns so high.
“The sky is going to be the limit for him,” Scott said.
One of only a handful of redshirt freshmen that tested out elite, a culmination of a number of strength, speed and agility testing in the offseason, Ferns has impressed in conditioning as well.
And he’s taking to teaching, too. Not just teaching from the coaches but taking a page out of Benton’s playbook and learning all he can from the redshirt senior on how to improve.
If that continues, Benton will be leaving the position in good hands for the future.
“Mentally it was helping him process things faster,” he said. “But I’ve got a couple more months.”
