Bye weeks can be a good thing for a number of reasons.

There’s the obvious one that it allows football teams to heal up from the various bumps and bruises that occur over the course of a college football schedule. That is a critical element when it comes to getting players healthy for the stretch run of the season.

Another element is simply more practice time and for a young West Virginia team playing 19 first-time players in various roles that again is a significant bonus. More preparation time for the next opponent is yet another added benefit, although Texas will have the same luxury for the Mountaineers ahead of the Oct. 5 matchup.

Those aren’t the only benefits though.

More often than not open weekends provide the opportunity for college coaches to hit the road and make up some ground on the recruiting trail and that will be no different at West Virginia as the bulk of the coaches will be out evaluating prospects.

Because of the weekly demands in order to prepare from game-to-game, as well as the obvious fact that the weekends are booked to play them, coaching staff’s have little time to get out on the road and personally evaluate prospects.

That won’t be the case this weekend.

The Mountaineers will have Friday and Saturday off allowing the opportunity for the assistant coaches to spread out across the country in order to see both commitments and top targets in this class and future ones.

While those destinations will vary, the goal is simple. Get to different locations in order to evaluate prospects and determine if they can help build the program for the future. Recruiting is the life blood of any program and much of it is done through those reviews of prospects to determine a target list moving forward.

The bulk of that work has already been done for the current class, so now it’s about going to see how those evaluations match up with the eye test as coaches will get looks at players that could be potential additions to the group.

There will of course be some local stops, but this week could be big in order to check out players in the Southeast and other areas that have yet to make it to campus for one reason or another. Expect assistants to handle a number of games across the region.

There also will be some early work done on the 2021 class as well.

“We’ll be out Thursday, Friday and Saturday. A few coaches will be out all three days, but most of them one or two days over that period seeing 2020 recruits, guys that are committed or guys we are heavily involved with and also getting some evaluation of 2021 recruits as well,” Brown said.

The Mountaineers already have 13 commitments in the 2020 class and have the room to add anywhere between 9-10 more from the current scholarship allotment although they could always pull from future allotments with a blueshirt option.

Yes, there won’t be college football in Morgantown this weekend but there will be some very important work ongoing when it comes to building the future of the program.

WATCH: Musings from the Mountains - Episode 24

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