Running the ball continues to be key concern for West Virginia football

Much like the Puskar Center complex as a whole, the West Virginia football program is currently under heavy construction as the coaching staff looks to address key issues.

At the top of that list, at least offensively, is figuring out a way to be more productive in the run game. By now, the struggles in that department are well documented.

The Mountaineers mustered only 879 yards rushing as a team with 2.6 yards per attempt on the year. There were only 25 total runs over 10+yards out of the backfield for the entire year.

That might seem like a lot, but when you consider that Oklahoma State running back Chuba Hubbard accounted for 49 of those by himself it’s a sign of the struggles establishing the run.

“The major area we have to get better at is rushing the football. I think we have a good plan for that, time will tell, we won’t know that until we lineup to play Florida State, but we have a plan to attack that,” head coach Neal Brown said.

The plan this off-season was to look at each player as well as the unit as a whole and determine what had to get better heading into this spring for the Mountaineers to have success. A plan was then formulated on how to attack it and look for avenues to make those leaps.

Brown believes after watching the entire collection of run cutups from last year that West Virginia started to find its footing in the run game late in the season a year ago, at least schematically.

The offensive line was able to cover up opponents for the most part and avoid some of the devastating carries for losses that the program had earlier in the year. But even with the group being targeted correctly they weren’t able to consistently generate the movement necessarily to establish the run.

The hope is that the natural maturation process with so many returning players outside the starting tackles in Colton McKivitz and Kelby Wickline will help on that front. Especially in regards to another off-season under the belt of some of the younger options on the roster to improve strength.

“Offensive line is really, really difficult to play early in your career,” Brown said.

The plan is that things likely aren’t going to be fixed overnight, that’s quite honestly unrealistic considering just how bad the Mountaineers were in this department.

But the cohesiveness of the unit and the understanding of the system as well as the bulk of the offensive line continuing to work together from one year to the next should lend itself to marginal jumps overall.

“All of those guys are back even those guys that redshirted last year,” Brown said.

Improvements at other positions such as an ability to beat man coverage on the outside to prevent teams from getting an advantage inside the box should only aid those efforts as well.

Not to mention the return of some key cogs in the backfield such as Leddie Brown, who played his best ball late should only continue to move the needle in a positive direction as the Mountaineers try to find their footing.

That is exactly the challenge and what will ultimately help decide how successful this year will be.

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