West Virginia has a hole to fill at the spear safety position.
The position, which is in the mold of a hybrid between a safety, linebacker and slot cornerback is asked to do things not only in run support but in man coverage as the edge of the defense to the field.
The spot was held by Tykee Smith the past two seasons and he certainly didn’t disappoint establishing himself as one of the premier players at his position in college football. Over those two seasons, Smith, racked up 114 tackles, 10.5 tackles for loss, 1 sack, 4 interceptions during his 22 games on the field.
But after Smith and the Mountaineers mutually elected to part ways on the first day of spring practice, the onus is on the coaching staff to fill that spot heading into the season with another talented piece or pieces. That’s where the versatility of that spot as well as the roster can help.
“We’ll definitely move them around and we’ve got guys who can play multiple spots,” head coach Neal Brown said. “I think that spear position through the years has been two different body types. You can move a third corner in there to play or you can move a third or fourth safety in there.”
Because of that it opens the door for several different pieces of the roster to fit into the puzzle. Of course, Arizona transfer Scottie Young lined up there in the Liberty Bowl game against Army and performed well over his 57 snaps in the game. But that was a different type of opponent which forced him into run support in almost every snap he played as a pass wasn’t thrown in his direction.
Young will have his chances to fill the role, but he won’t be the only one. Because the position is typically the edge of the field to the wide side of the field, many plays get funneled to the position if you have a safety playing in that role. If it’s more of a corner-type body, you can adjust the coverage and force somebody else on the defense to be the edge such as the MIKE linebacker or a safety.
That means there really isn’t any limitation as to who could fill that spear role and there could be more than one depending on how the coaches want to address the spot.
Looking at the roster, Young could certainly fit there as a safety type along with senior Alonzo Addae, but even cornerback Jackie Matthews could be a good fit as well.
“We’ve got flexibility with our defensive calls and we have some versatility with the guys we can move around,” Brown said.
The plan for the spring will be to move each of these pieces around as if they were on a chess board to discover the best 11 overall and who can best fill the roles. By the end, Brown is hoping that many of these players could be asked to fill multiple spots if need be.
That includes at spear. While there might not be a direct replacement for Smith, there could end up being several different players fill his role by the time the dust settles.
“The hope is all these returners can learn how to play the entire show,” he said.
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