Preserving Molina's leg a priority

West Virginia has found itself in a familiar situation with its kicking game.

After redshirt senior and former Lou Groza finalist Josh Lambert left the football program, the Mountaineers are now back in the same spot they were during the first three games of the year. Redshirt junior Mike Molina will assume his responsibilities as both the place kicker and kickoff man but the challenge now will be for the coaches to preserve his leg over the next eight games.

With Lambert, West Virginia had a proven option to kickoff and take some of the stress off the leg of Molina but now the Mountaineers will be forced to look at some different methods.

And while the news was announced earlier this week it was something the coaches had time to plan for during the bye week and get reps for some of the other kicking options in the program.

“We have to keep an eye on him in terms of volume of kicks,” said Mark Scott, assistant and special teams coordinator for West Virginia.

Accomplishing that could come in several ways. One area that West Virginia will look at is the scaling back of the work load for Molina in practice and even giving him days off from kicking.

The other is breaking in some of the other options behind him to kick both in practice and the possibility of games on the kickoff team. Both could be options moving forward, according to Scott.

“We have a couple of guys who are capable of doing it and we’ve been giving them reps at kickoff. We have to gauge it week to week based on how Mike feels. Eight straight weeks is something that we will have to monitor closely,” Scott said.

Next man up to kickoff is true freshman Jonn Young and while he has yet to enter a game, the kicker was much heralded coming out of the prep ranks. Scott has been impressed with his powerful leg as well as the location, depth and hang time of his kicks.

The biggest hurdle has come in the department of consistency.

“We have to get him comfortable as possible because he’s the next guy in,” Scott said.

And while finding a balance with how much Molina kicks is the biggest issue, there is absolutely no lack of confidence in his abilities booting the ball from all within the program.

“We’re very comfortable with (Mike) Molina,” head coach Dana Holgorsen said.