Musings from the Mountains: West Virginia fall camp notebook

West Virginia didn’t open the season it wanted to a season ago.

The Mountaineers had four turnovers in a 30-24 season opening deflating loss to rival Maryland and simply didn’t play well according to head coach Neal Brown. That prompted changes this off-season considering that West Virginia yet again opens with a rivalry game against nationally ranked Pittsburgh.

“We did not perform well in that Maryland game last year and that was kind of something we really studied going back into January and the spring,” Brown said.

The coaching staff examined how the Mountaineers structured fall camp last season considering how poorly the effort was on both sides of the ball and attempted to make alterations.

That included changing how the program practices, how long they would go, what time the players would leave the building, the number of off-days and everything in between.

The goal is to have a 180-degree turnaround in preparation with the goal in mind to be as best as the Mountaineers can possibly be leading into that Thursday night kickoff against Pittsburgh.

“Instead of doing it all over again, we went out and studied how the best do it and we’ve taken some of those things and really changed,” Brown said.

Clearly the results aren’t going to be known until the game is actually played but the program is satisfied with the changes made in order to try to achieve a better result.

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One of the biggest storylines in fall camp has been the progression of the ongoing quarterback battle between transfer JT Daniels, redshirt sophomore Garrett Greene, redshirt freshman Goose Crowder and true freshman Nicco Marchiol. Brown didn’t comment on how each fared in the first scrimmage without reviewing the film but did say that the reps were split evenly in terms of drives.

That means that while the play count might not have been the same depending on the results of each drive, all four were given the same opportunities to succeed.

“Part of the determining factor because it’s all about scoring touchdowns,” he said.

The scrimmage focused largely on situational work such as red zone, two-minute and third-downs while the defense tackled for at least half of the longer practice inside the stadium.

The Mountaineers have been two-spotting in team practices which effectively has all four units going on two ends of the field which has allowed plenty of reps to be had among the signal callers.

The goal is to try to start the process of trimming things down around the second scrimmage next Thursday as the page will flip from getting prepared for the season to preparing for the first game. While a decision might not be made there, the focus will be to start pairing things down further.

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Reese Smith had a significant hamstring injury on the first day in pads during the spring which limited what he could do on the field. This fall, Smith has ran well and posted impressive numbers on the GPS. He is currently pushing in the wide receiver room because he makes plays and has the confidence of the quarterback room as a whole.

Now in his third year with the program, Smith displays no intimidation going across the middle and gets north and south once he gets the ball in his hands. Brown believes that he is ready to take a step as a contributor on offense which was on display in an impressive performance in the scrimmage.

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