West Virginia wrapped up the 15-spring practices with the annual Gold-Blue football game.

The contest, which was won by the Gold 22-21, was a showcase of the work that had been accomplished by the team this spring in front of a healthy crowd of 12,678.

The major takeaways were that it was relatively clean football with minimal penalties as well as escaping without any injuries.

Each of the three young quarterbacks operated within the offense for the most part despite things being purposefully vanilla and while it certainly wasn’t perfect head coach Neal Brown left feeling positive about the work done.

The close of spring lays to rest the first portion of the off-season which began in January with eight weeks of strength and conditioning and then transitioned into spring practices and lifting on off-days.

The plan is to give the players around three-weeks off once finals are completed with the majority of them heading back to their hometowns to recuperate. It is the largest chunk of off-time that the players get throughout the year and one that Brown wants to see them take advantage of the break.

“They put in so much work and they deserve some. Your body needs some time to recoup,” he said.

After the break, the team is set to reconvene around Memorial Day and then the coaching staff will have nine weeks to get the eight weeks of summer into the schedule. But that is also an important time for the chemistry of the team as player-led sessions are at the forefront of the work.

The Mountaineers will welcome a host of newcomers as well with around 18 scholarship players set to arrive including transfers such as quarterback JT Daniels and spear Jasir Cox along with a host of freshmen and junior college players.

The program also will welcome another 15-or so preferred walk-on players during that time period as well.

Meshing those newcomers into the fabric of the identity already being established will be key in order for the team to continue to move forward. It also will be critical to acclimate those new additions as fast as possible so they will be in position to help the team as soon as possible.

“The summer is going to be really important for us,” Brown said.

The same goes for younger players on the roster that are going to need to develop further as they go through the summer in order to take on a bigger role.

West Virginia still holds four open scholarships as well and with spring in the books the focus in on trying to make the most improvement possible with summer on the horizon.

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