One of the biggest holes on the defensive side heading into the start of the 2023 season for West Virginia was that second linebacker spot. Insert Trey Lathan.
The redshirt freshman has been one of the early surprises for the Mountaineers on defense playing 157 snaps across three starts this season.
And those have been productive snaps as Lathan is second on the team in tackles with 17, while leading the Mountaineers with 6 quarterback hurries.
Lathan played only 35 snaps a season ago but has become an answer early in the season next to proven option Lee Kpogba as the two have flipped back and forth between MIKE and WILL.
“His growth. He’s still a really young player, but he’s athletic, he’s aggressive and his best football is still ahead of him. We went into this season quite honestly putting a little more pressure than somebody that age is ready for because that was our hole,” coordinator Jordan Lesley said. “But he’s really, really stepped up and that growth continues week-by-week.”
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There’s no better way to find out than throwing a young player into the fire and it’s helped to provide some much-needed athleticism at a spot that has struggled with that in recent years. What Lathan lacks in experience, he makes up for given that he was recruited to fill this role given his physical traits.
It goes back to the evaluation process where West Virginia identified Lathan as a linebacker that could do what they wanted at the position and displayed what was needed to fill it.
“He’s really athletic. He’s exactly what we’re looking for at linebacker. He’s athletic enough to ply in coverage. He’s a guy that’s got a bright future,” head coach Neal Brown said.
For Lathan himself, being able to get on the field has been a dream come true. He worked hard to transform his body from 195-pounds in high school to where he currently sits tipping the scales at 225.
“I feel like I can put on more weight but I’m playing really big and comfortable at this level,” he said.
The Florida native believes that while there is still room for improvement and plenty of mistakes that needed to be cleaned up, he is getting more comfortable with each snap he’s been given on the field.
That has allowed him to better ready his keys and figure diagnose what to do against the run, while his athleticism has allowed him to fill a role in coverage. So much so, that he dropped a potential interception against Pittsburgh where he fell back into his responsibility.
The former high school wide receiver believes the biggest adjustment has simply come in learning the formation and offensive tendencies from the defensive perspective. Lathan played some linebacker in high school, but he knew that his future at the college level would always come on that side of the ball.
But that experience on offense wasn’t for naught.
“It helped me because I know a lot of routes, things that they use and techniques they use to help to my advantage in man and zone coverage,” he said.
The responsibilities at the two linebacker spots tend to mirror each other except one is to the field and the other the boundary, although the MIKE does have more pass coverage responsibilities. Lathan believes he can fill the role at either when called upon even with his overall inexperience.
As if the motivation to see the field wasn’t great enough, Lathan also had a bit of extra juice in the sense that his close friend and high school teammate CJ Donaldson broke out as a true freshman. The two have known each other since they were seven years old, and Lathan considers Donaldson a brother.
In fact, it was Lathan that put the full-court press on Donaldson to flip his commitment to the Mountaineers when he received a late scholarship offer in the process.
In high school practice, the two would often go against each other daily and Lathan admits to Donaldson getting him twice but the majority of the time it was a battle that he got the best of his friend.
“Seeing him do that just made me go harder because I realized I’m just next up. It motivated me to go harder,” Lathan said.
The future is bright for Lathan but in the here and now it’s about improvement. That’s his only focus.
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