It didn’t take long for Duquesne transfer cornerback Ayden Garnes to know West Virginia was the right fit. In fact you could describe it as love at first sight.
Garnes, 6-foot-0, 170-pounds, felt that the Mountaineers were the right fit from the time he left his hotel room and arrived at the football facilities.
“I just had a feeling this is a place I can see myself. This is a place I feel like I can go build. I just felt so comfortable. I felt loved when I came into the building,” he said.
The Mountaineers had a need at both cornerback and nickel, which is where Garnes played this past season for the Dukes. He graded out as the top defender on his team with high coverage numbers and his versatility appealed to the West Virginia coaches.
Garnes could play either as a boundary cornerback or as a nickel as the coaching staff wants to shift to more man coverage which would allow him to do what he was doing this past year.
“The coaches see me as a fit because I’m very versatile and I can do multiple things,” he said. “I saw it with my own eyes, they need help at my position.”
One of the things that stood out to Garnes was the fact that everything in the program is in one spot so he doesn’t have to go all over the campus to get nutrition, or the weight room, locker rooms or meeting rooms among many other amenities. That’s a stark contrast from his previous stop.
The transfer cornerback plans to enroll in January to start his career and participate in spring football. The immediate focus will be adding more weight to his frame and learning his responsibilities in the new defensive scheme in Morgantown.
Garnes gave the coaches the good news following the practice Saturday and was even able to sit in on a meeting to see what it would be like to suit up for the program.
“I felt like I could be in that room and bring some leadership to that room,” he said.
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