Class in session as focus of WVU spring drills
West Virginia’s classrooms are now back in session, but there was still some instruction going on in Morgantown the past two weeks even when they weren't.
It was just unfolding on a football field.
The Mountaineers coaching staff has focused their attention to date not on going live, as the helmet were first put on Saturday, but non-contact instruction and education.
Spring drills to date has been devoted entirely to how to line up the right way and what the assignments are as well as unit specific items.
West Virginia is in a healthy place numbers wise outside of the defensive line spot but that doesn’t have any effect on how they will practice overall.
Instead, the program has the numbers at other spots in order to provide more multiple looks on defense, as well as offense, Holgorsen said.
“So that part of it is a lot of fun,” he said.
On the defensive side there continues to be continuity with the coaching staff which helps grow and develop the unit, while on the offensive side it is now year two with the current system and quarterback. Those things will continue to prepare the Mountaineers for the next steps.
On defense the goal will be to tackle better after a season where the Mountaineers struggled in that department. Even though there isn’t as much live work the goal is still to hone in on techniques and other items that are going to help them achieve that goal.
“Studying film and watching what our biggest problem was and it all comes down to that,” defensive coordinator Tony Gibson said.
Offensively the coaches have been breaking it all down to the bare bones and scaling things back to work on the basics of things. While the focus is based entirely on beating the defense once the year starts, this time of the year is about instruction and getting all 11 working together.
“We get very base stuff. We just want to see technique,” offensive coordinator Jake Spavital said.
The purpose of it all is to get good tape to study moving forward even if it isn’t as ramped up as fall camp the focus is individual work and through that becoming a team.
Holgorsen expects that the competition between the units will crank up as things progress with players advancing from spider pads to shoulder pads and then throwing on the pants and tackling.
But the main objective is a simple one.
“Get every one of these guys to understand how we practice,” Holgorsen said.
So for the rest of spring class is in session.
