PFF: five returning West Virginia players that improved most in 2023
The 2023 West Virginia football season is over with spring football on the horizon we're looking at the 2024 roster.
With the help of PFF, we look back at the five players who made the biggest jumps in their level of play from the 2022 campaign to 2023. This list does include transfers but not true freshmen that didn't suit up the previous season.
And in order to meet this criteria, players had to play at least 100 snaps.
QB Garrett Greene
2022 Grade: 70.2
2023 Grade: 90.8
Nobody on the roster saw the growth that Greene displayed in 2023 rising his profile from simply a starting quarterback to the leader of this football team. Greene played 738 snaps and turned that into a highly productive year with 2,406 passing yards and 16 touchdowns against only 4 interceptions. Meanwhile, Greene was also a major threat on the ground with 772 yards and 13 more scores. The redshirt junior took care of the football and continued his upward trajectory that he displayed at the end of 2022. Greene displayed the ability to accurately throw the ball down the field and was third in the nation in big-time throws, which is a pass with excellent ball location and timing, generally thrown further down the field and/or into a tighter window, with 31. He was behind only Michael Penix and Drake Maye in that department. The one area which Greene can continue to show improvement is with his intermediate passing with a completion percentage of just 52.9 on the season. So there is room for further growth.
DL Fatorma Mulbah
2022 Grade: 62.9
2023 Grade: 79.2
Mulbah was almost an afterthought compared to some other transfers when he was added to the roster as a transfer from Penn State last January but the coaching staff always felt they found a gem. For one, Mulbah played out of position for the Nittany Lions and across 39 snaps made little impact during his time on the field. That wasn't the case in his first season in Morgantown as Mulbah served as the backup at nose tackle for most of the season before taking over in the Duke's Mayo Bowl. He finished the year as one of the highest-graded defenders across 240 snaps and put together a productive statistical line of 25 tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss, 0.5 sacks. Mulbah will be asked to take on a much larger role in his second season with the Mountaineers.
DL Hammond Russell
2022 Grade: 63.1
2023 Grade: 73.6
Russell saw just 16 snaps in his first season with West Virginia on the field but saw his role grow to a more rotational piece in his second season with over 112 snaps on the field. He turned that into 10 tackles and 0.5 a sack, but the potential is there for that role to grow even further in his third year given the situation upfront. Russell is a big body that has started to find his role on the field.
DL Eddie Vesterinen
2022 Grade: 58.1
2023 Grade: 66.7
Vesterinen has seen his role grow in all three years that he has been with the West Virginia football program and had his most productive this past season. The Finnish defensive lineman saw his snaps grow from 252 in 2022 to double that at 518 this past season while starting all 13 games. He recorded a total of 28 tackles, 4.5 tackles for loss and 3.0 sacks for the Mountaineers this past season and will return for his final campaign this fall looking to build even further on those totals.
TE Kole Taylor
2022 Grade: 58.0
2023 Grade: 65.0
Taylor was brought into the West Virginia football program to serve as a pass-catching tight end after the Mountaineers had struggled to find consistency there the year before. The coaching staff zeroed in on the LSU transfer early and was able to get him into the fold during the first wave of transfers in December. Taylor played a little over 200 snaps in each of his first three years at LSU, which resulted in just 17 catches for 159 yards and a touchdown. But that role grew immensely in his first year in Morgantown playing over 700 snaps and finishing with 35 catches, 444 yards and 4 touchdowns. The reception total led the team, the first time a tight end has done so since the 1980s, and the touchdown mark was tied at the top. Taylor also forced the most missed tackles out of the West Virginia pass catchers and his yardage total was good enough for third on the 2023 roster. Taylor will return with one season left and is looking to build even more off a productive first year at West Virginia.
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