WVSports.com looks at the weekly press conference from West Virginia head coach Neal Brown and determines the five most interesting topics of discussion.
We examine what was said as well as what it means for the football team both this week and moving ahead as the Mountaineers navigate the 2019 schedule.
1—West Virginia sees the unintended consequences of the redshirt rule. Well, it took two years of the redshirt rule being in place but the Mountaineers now have their first example of a player utilizing it in order to transfer before getting over the four-game threshold. Senior spear linebacker JoVanni Stewart appeared in the first four games of the season, starting each, but elected to sit out against Texas for what at the time was described as “personal reasons.” That escalated quickly a few days later as Stewart is now no longer a member of the West Virginia football program as he undoubtedly plans to utilize the redshirt rule in order to transfer and play at another institution next fall. It isn’t a ground-breaking decision when it comes to looking at the college football landscape as it’s already happened at several other schools already but it becomes real when it happens to your team.
It'll be interesting to see if there are any adjustments to the rule in the future to prevent these type of situations or if coaches will have to meet with players before the season to get an idea on where they stand to better prepare for these situations. But in the meantime, the Mountaineers lose an experienced senior player that had started 16 career games and appeared in 41 during his career. Losing depth is never a good thing so that’s not a positive but it does clear the way for a young promising player in Tykee Smith to get a bigger share of the reps. That isn’t the worst possible outcome.
I do think that this is something that is only going to continue to pop up across the college football landscape if there are no adjustments to the rules meaning that this is the new normal.
2—Injury updates. West Virginia had a pair of wide receivers injured against Texas in sophomore Sean Ryan and redshirt freshman Sam James. When it comes to this weekend’s game against Iowa State, James is currently listed as questionable and his status will be determined later this week. The prognosis for Ryan is not as optimistic in the short term as he has undergone the knife and is expected to miss several weeks after what Brown referred to as an “upper injury.”
This obviously makes the next man up important at the wide receiver spot, one that already was relying on a lot of freshmen and newcomers to begin with overall. Redshirt freshman Bryce Wheaton got his opportunity late against Texas and made two catches for 43 yards and a score. He is going to have more opportunities at one of those spots with Ryan out for the immediate future and freshman Ali Jennings is going to have a chance to earn more reps as well given the need for more players to emerge.
3—Changing practice habits. With some of the concerns over depth, or lack thereof, the Mountaineers are going to have to scale back on some of their practice routines. That means less good on good in practice because quite frankly they don’t have the numbers right now to risk it. Brown pointed out something that was telling when he said that he saw there were four safeties in the pre-game warmup line against Texas because right now that is what they have at that spot.
There also will be some adjustments to how long the practices are going as well as scaling back the physical nature of them in large part because of the numbers. This isn’t unheard of, but obviously is going to be the goal to address that in the future to get the numbers back up.
4—The curious case of Tevin Bush. One of the stars of the opener, the junior broke out to the tune of 4 catches for 74 yards and a touchdown but has been relatively quiet since with only 2 catches for 21 yards and both of those came in the Missouri game. He saw only a single target against Kansas and then wasn’t used offensively against Texas leading some to wonder where he’s been?
Well, Brown said that against the Longhorns it was simply an issue of wanting to get bigger and use tight ends on the field instead of some of the smaller players and he has been battling a nagging injury which has limited his overall snaps of late. It will be interesting to see if this changes moving forward and if Bush becomes more of a factor in the offense after showcasing some of what he can do in an expanded role. Still, consistency has been one of the biggest holdups there and it remains to be seen if he’s found it even with battling some of the injury concerns that have kept him off the field.
5—Another big recruiting weekend on tap. West Virginia played host to a large number of their top 2021 prospects last weekend with players such as Potomac (Md.) Bullis School 2021 quarterback Christian Veilleux, Huntington (W.Va.) Spring Valley 2021 offensive lineman Wyatt Milum, Baltimore (Md.) Mount St. Joseph 2021 wide receiver Dont’e Thornton, Lincolnton (N.C.) North Lincoln 2021 defensive end Travali Price, Washington (D.C.) Archbishop Carroll 2021 wide receiver Leron Husbands, Dillon (S.C.) 2021 athlete Ahmari Huggins-Bruce, Germantown (Md.) Northwest 2021 wide receiver Kaden Prather, Philadelphia (Pa.) Imhotep Charter 2021 safety Javon Mcintyre and Myrtle Beach (S.C.) Socastee 2021 athlete JJ Jones just to name a few. The atmosphere was electric and something that helped to showcase the program to a large group of potential prospects.
Well, Brown expects another strong group this weekend and he urged the fan base to come out and support the team yet again in order to show visitors this weekend the same type of atmosphere. We’ll continue to update our list of prospects that are expected this weekend but the positive is that when it comes to building quality depth you can only do it through attracting good players. Showing them what type of game day environment Morgantown can provide only helps in that department.
WATCH: Musings from the Mountains | West Virginia Football | Episode 29
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