For the most part West Virginia is going to be unseasoned in the secondary.
That’s only natural after losing all-conference safety Kenny Robinson and another projected starter in Derrek Pitts this off-season forcing the coaches to shuffle bodies around to fill holes.
Josh Norwood, one of the starting cornerbacks from last season, slid to safety while the other spot is going to be relatively inexperienced regardless who eventually wins the job.
The two starters at cornerback have already been through the battles in the Big 12 Conference but the backups are quite literally true freshmen in Tae Mayo and Nicktroy Fortune. At this level, depth is a necessity not a luxury so those two are going to be called on for snaps in meaningful games.
That’s a whole lot of uncertainty in the backend making what happens up front all the more important.
It’s not overly complicated but isn’t any type of secret either.
“Our d-line has got to be a force,” coordinator Vic Koenning said.
That means being a force in both the run game and the pass game as the new scheme challenges the defensive linemen to be aggressive and disruptive in both arenas. Gone are the days of sitting and occupying gaps to allow other defenders to clean things up as the group is now asked to be active and get up field in order to make plays in the backfield.
There’s the use of twists in order to create confusion and some major differences than in the past.
“Just fundamentals. A lot of things are a lot different schematically, a lot of techniques that are specific to the scheme are a lot different than what guys are used to,” position coach Jordan Lesley said.
And he’s right.
The defensive coaches do things in order to create edges and angles for the unit up front and the group is asked to stop the run as well as get after the quarterback. Stopping the run is imperative for success but this group has to be a force in the pass rushing department as well.
It’s not easy to ask defensive linemen to be productive at that level for long period of times so the goal is to ensure that the coaches can keep them fresh when they are in the game.
That means a mixing and matching of rotations in order to pare down how many snaps each player up front is asked to play per contest. Now some of that will be determined by tempo and various other aspects that can alter from game-to-game and sometimes even series-to-series.
Ideally, Lesley would like to have nine defensive linemen ready to rotate snaps. He has been putting the group through the ringer in camp in order to determine how they can hold up in certain situations to determine how long those players can keep their focus and perform at a high level.
That’s some trial and error in itself but important to understand where certain players lose their effectiveness at a physically demanding spot on the field.
“That’s why this time of year that you have to test guys in those situations,” he said.
The ultimately goal is to keep each of the linemen under 40 snaps per game to keep them fresh and ready to impact the game. That is going to require the unit being more of a ‘we’ type deal instead of relying on individual players to carry the load.
So the goal is to keep defenders off the field for significant periods of time in order to get the most out of the unit as the calendar quickly flips toward the season opener.
“We’re trying to develop the depth where we’re not going to have to do that,” Koenning said.
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