Brown likes the makeup of 2021 West Virginia football team
West Virginia head coach Neal Brown likes his football team.
The Mountaineers are coming off a 6-4 campaign last year in the COVID-19 shortened season but showed signs of progress on many fronts. And now, Brown believes that his team is as positioned in several departments as it’s been since he took the helm.
“Our leadership is better than any point,” he said.
On the defensive side, the Mountaineers had one of the best units not only in the Big 12 Conference but in the entire nation. The unit finished as the No. 4 overall in all of college football allowing only 291.4 yards per game and was perched at 21st nationally at 20.5 points surrendered per game.
The program returns the bulk of that experience and will be the centerpiece to what the Mountaineers have to offer during the 2021 campaign.
“That’s going to be the unit that will lead us again,” Brown said.
It will start up front with Dante Stills, a senior defensive lineman that was the only selection on the pre-season all-Big 12 team, along with Akheem Mesidor who is coming off a breakout freshman campaign and has moved inside to his more natural position.
“I think he’s got really an opportunity to be a special player in our league,” he said.
The secondary also returns two starting safeties in Sean Mahone and Alonzo Addae for a sixth year while Nicktroy Fortune, Scottie Young and others have experience back there.
Linebacker has the most questions on that side, but the program has been active in the transfer market with Lance Dixon from Penn State and Deshawn Stevens from Maine.
The offense didn’t finish the season on a high note, but overall Brown believes that it displayed growth. But if they want to take that next step the Mountaineers have to get better on that side of the ball.
Senior quarterback Jarret Doege returns and is coming off a very strong spring after a shaky end to his 2020 campaign that saw him benched in the Liberty Bowl against Army.
“We have to be more explosive. We missed too many shots down the field. We had people open a lot of times that we didn't connect. We had some drops that were a factor in that. But we have got to be more explosive. If you look at teams that have played at an elite level, they are not grounding out drives. They are explosive plays. And to have explosive plays, you have to be able to break tackles, you have to be elite, run after the catch, or you have to hit shots down the field,” Brown said.
It doesn’t hurt matters that the offense welcomes back Leddie Brown who rushed for 1,010 yards and 9 touchdowns in only ten games a season ago.
“I think he’s special,” Brown said.
Receiver is a major question mark and drops plagued the unit with over 30 being credited to the group as a whole. That means that now it’s time to take that next step and if that occurs it will go a long way toward determining the success of the offense as a whole.
The offensive line is still developing in some spots, but the group has a chance to be much improved over the units of the past two years due to players maturing and a transfer in Doug Nester.
It won’t be an easy task given the fact that the program squares off against 11-power five opponents, but Brown believes his team has more athleticism than it’s had at any point in the past two years.
And with fall camp approaching, Brown will have the opportunity to showcase the growth his program has made over the past two seasons as they shoot for a higher finish in 2021.
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