Holgorsen’s Take: National Signing Day and Camping World Bowl

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National Signing Day

It was a busy day for the West Virginia football program with the early signing period getting underway Wednesday.

West Virginia currently has 18 players for its 2019 recruiting class, 16 of whom signed their letter of intent on Wednesday. The other two players, Alabama linebacker transfer VanDarius Cowan and wide receiver Isaiah Esdale were already enrolled in the program, but their scholarships will count towards the 2019 class after they were added to the team in August.

FBS teams are allowed 25 scholarships per recruiting class which means the Mountaineers have seven spots remaining. These will be filled between now and the summer. This is key especially if the team has sudden and unexpected player departures which can help fill gaps according to Holgorsen.

“It’s nice to be able to kinda reassess after the early signing period as far as what we need moving forward,” head coach Dana Holgorsen said. “We’ll be back out on the road in January to continue to do research and to continue to recruit guys and bring in about seven more here moving forward.”

Holgorsen is pleased with the class thus far and confirmed that at least three players will be enrolling early in Dreshun Miller, Kerry Martin and Taijh Alston.

“It’s a great group of guys,” Holgorsen said.

Holgorsen praised the recruiting efforts of cornerbacks coach Doug Belk who is beginning to build a pipeline from the state of Georgia to West Virginia.

Belk, a Georgia native, helped recruit four players from the Peach State to the Mountain State in this year’s class in Tony Mathis, Winston Wright, Jared Bartlett and Nicktroy Fortune.

Miller, a former LSU commit, is also a Georgia native that Belk recruited. Miller also had some West Virginia connections around him, having played with Esdale and Joe and Mike Brown at Eastern Arizona College.

“That’s been a high priority of ours,” Holgorsen said regarding recruiting players from Georgia. “It’s really good football. It’s as well a coached of a football state as I’ve seen. They got great talent.”

Every position is a need according to Holgorsen but a big one that West Virginia still has to address in this 2019 class is quarterback.

The departure of Will Grier leaves the program with just two scholarship quarterbacks on its roster in Miami transfer Jack Allison and true freshman Trey Lowe. Both will play in next Friday’s Camping World Bowl according to Holgorsen.

Holgorsen said they will most likely bring in a quarterback during the summer.

“We’re always looking for the best players,” Holgorsen said. “We’re always looking to create as much competition as we possibly can.”

Camping World Bowl

Holgorsen said the team is excited to not only play in Orlando, where the team played two years ago against Miami in the same bowl, but to clash against and old Big East foe in Syracuse.

“We know these guys from a program perspective,” Holgorsen said. “It’s been a heated rival game forever.”

Holgorsen also said he had Syracuse head coach Dino Babers go way back with their Texas connections. When Babers was the head coach at Bowling Green, West Virginia’s coaches studied Bowling Green’s tape when preparing to face Maryland. The Falcons defeated Maryland in 2015, 48-27.

According to Holgorsen, West Virginia is familiar with Syracuse’s style of play which includes an offense led by an experienced quarterback in Eric Dungey that runs a high number of plays per game and a defense that may surrender a lot of yards but are sound and aggressive.

On special teams, Syracuse is led by kicker and Lou Groza Award winner, Andre Szmyt.

Syracuse carries a 9-3 record heading into next Friday with its three losses coming in the hands of Clemson, Pitt and Notre Dame.

“They have my attention as far as what they do,” Holgorsen said. “Two of those three losses were to (College Football Playoff) teams. It’s going to be a challenge.”

Holgorsen said the team will practice tomorrow and Friday morning and players will have the chance to go home for a few days before reconvening on Monday in Orlando.

“I think our guys will be ready to play,” Holgorsen said. “We’ve done a great job of next guy up needs to get in there and play and I don’t feel this will be any different.”

The team was banged up following the regular season finale loss to Oklahoma, but Holgorsen said the team is now healthy and that the players can’t be worn out once they get to Orlando.

Holgorsen also confirmed that every player on the roster is academically eligible for the bowl game which marks the third straight year the program has accomplished this feat. According to Holgorsen, the team’s overall GPA was a 2.98. Nobody on the team had a GPA below a 2.0 and 66 players had a GPA of 3.0 or higher.

He credits this success to Brittney O’Dell, the program's assistant athletic director for student-athlete development.

“Brittney O'Dell is an absolute superstar,” Holgorsen said. “She’s doing as good of a job as I’ve ever seen.”

Holgorsen also said he will call the offensive plays in the bowl game in place of offensive coordinator Jake Spavital, who left to become the head coach at Texas State. However, Holgorsen didn’t say whether or not he’ll take over the play calling duties for next season and said he’ll reevaluate everything once the year is over.

As far as player personnel goes, Holgorsen said wide receiver Gary Jennings will join Grier and offensive tackle Yodny Cajuste on the list of players not playing in the bowl game due to an ankle injury he’s battled most of the season.

Holgorsen will use the bowl game as an opportunity to play different players who won’t lose a redshirt due to the new rule which allows players to play up to four games in a single season and not lose their redshirt.

Lowe, wide receivers Sam James and Bryce Wheaton, Mike Brown, T.J. Banks, Briason Mays and Kwantel Raines are among those players who are expected to see game action against Syracuse next Friday.

“We got a whole bunch of other people on our team that get an opportunity to go play a football game,” Holgorsen said. “We’re practicing our butt off and going to get those guys out there and see what happens in a live setting. That’s awesome to me and we’re not killing a year.”

“They’re going to be different people in January because of it,” he added.

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