West Virginia's defense continues to evolve
West Virginia changed a lot on the defensive side last season.
The Mountaineers simplified things on the coverage aspect and built a new foundation on how things would operate on the defensive side of the ball after a forgettable 2022 campaign.
“At its base, it really helped the guys to build a foundation of what we’re doing and be able to build on that,” defensive coordinator Jordan Lesley said.
And that’s exactly what the Mountaineers are doing this fall camp as the coaching staff is looking to expand on those changes and add more to what they’re doing there.
Now, that can only be up to what the players can handle but there have been some new wrinkles added to the mix.
That work started in the summer as West Virginia was able to have a productive series of off-season training activities in order to get a jumpstart to hit the ground running once fall camp was underway.
“You get a lot more done in the summer than you did a couple years ago,” Lesley said.
It’s a different situation than even a year ago when Lesley was forced to make adjustments early in the season due to personnel not performing and being forced to move players into the right spots. It’s also not the same challenge that unfolded later last year when injuries forced more adjustments.
This group is deeper and understands what is being asked of them.
“I think the difference this year is I don’t think you're hamstrung to one, these are our guys because we’re going to be a little more rotational, I think with being deeper,” he said. “We’re going to be next guy up instead of waiting for the next game to make changes.”
Another difference is simply the focus that the Mountaineers have made on being fundamentally sound on the defensive side with a focus on tackling, shedding blocks, angles to the football, and more. It sounds simple enough but is a critical piece to the turnaround there.
It takes time and effort as well as a buy-in when it comes to the physical identity that West Virginia wants to play with on that side of the football.
“We had to work really hard on that. If you don’t work on that, it’s hard to say that’s an identity for you. If you don’t work on it. And your players have to buy into it and accept it and we have,” Lesley said.
And now, Lesley believes his group is in a good spot.
“We’re a little further along in some areas. Some areas I don’t think we need to but we continue to expand on the way we work on being good at playing football and I think that was the biggest difference last year and I think that wll continue to be the biggest difference,” Lesley said.
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