The transfer portal has been a mixed bag for West Virginia over the past few years.
Last season, the Mountaineers struggled to find the right mix as many of the players brought into the program simply didn’t meet the standards set for them. This year that has flipped.
It wasn’t the most heralded class of additions but has proven to be quite effective for the 6-3 Mountaineers football team in all three phases.
Cornerback Beanie Bishop leads the nation in passes defended with 21, along with 4 interceptions, while safety Anthony Wilson is second on the team in tackles with 48 and a pick. Both Tyrin Bradley and Tomiwa Durojaiye have provided some juice off the edge in pass rushing roles and Fatorma Mulbah has been a strong presence when given opportunities on the interior defensive line.
On offense, wide receiver Devin Carter leads the team with 23 catches for 414 yards and a touchdown, while tight end Kole Taylor accounts for 25 catches for 305 yards and 3 scores. Even EJ Horton has started to get involved with 10 catches for 201 yards and a score over the second half of the year.
On special teams, kicker Michael Hayes is 12-13 on field goals with the only miss coming from 58-yards out and has hit touchbacks on 18 of his 49 kickoff attempts.
“It’s so young. We’ve had some hits, we’ve had some misses but I’m not going to talk about those,” head coach Neal Brown said. “But it’s like anything else.”
On top of the production on the field, the transfers also have played a key role from a mentoring standpoint to many of the other younger players in their position rooms.
“They’ve been really good in the locker room too and that maybe is as important as anything,” he said.
Some of it comes down to simply figuring out the niche of players that West Virginia needs to recruit from the portal to address needs and finding the best overall fits. That takes some trial and error, and Brown isn’t bashful to admit that he and his coaching staff have made some mistakes.
Related: National Statistical Rankings for West Virginia Football Week 10
It’s a difficult market to crack in many respects with every team dipping into the same talent pool. While not naming any names, defensive coordinator Jordan Lesley cited a specific example this off-season with a linebacker that would have ended up playing a significant role on this team but instead opted to go to one of the top programs in the country and is seeing limited playing time.
“That’s what the environment creates,” he said.
But with the transfer portal set to reopen in a few weeks, Brown believes that the coaching staff has cultivated a better system for why they’ve had success with some and not with others.
“When it comes open up again in the not-too-distant future we’ll have a lot more hits than we did misses,” the fifth-year head coach said.
West Virginia is focused on closing out the season for now, but Brown expects that the transfer portal will again play a critical role for next year’s team. The main focus will be on retaining the players that you want to retain, although batting a 1.000 on that always proves to be challenge.
Still, even being conservative Brown expects around a third of the roster to turnover every year across the country and outside of keeping your own players the focus will be on being aggressive at positions of need to fill out the holes that teams do have.
Expect West Virginia to do just that and also place a focus on some of those younger players with multiple years of eligibility remaining with limited experience such as what the program did add Durojaiye this past year. He redshirted in his first season with Kentucky but has made an impact when given the opportunity this season with the Mountaineers.
“You’re going to see a lot of people that are younger,” Brown said.
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