West Virginia football looks to play more on defensive line

The Mountaineers staring trio of Darius Stills, Dante Stills and Jeffery Pooler each played over 50 snaps in the game with only Akheem Mesidor and Quay Mays seeing action outside of those three. That was a limited role at that with Mesidor seeing 15 snaps and Mays only 6 in a game that approached 70 total.

That is a formula that isn’t going to work over the course of a season and the coaches understand that.

“The major emphasis there is where we do have some depth and we’ve got to do a better job subbing on the defensive line,” head coach Neal Brown said. “The other areas, it kind of is what it is.”

Part of the reason that the Mountaineers struggled with the substitutions is a credit to what the Texas Tech offense was able to do with their tempo. Because they were able to get to the line so quickly without changing personnel it put the coaches in a difficult spot.

The defensive line is where fatigue is often noticeable so not having the ability to have multiple players fill that role makes it difficult on those players being overextended.

Other times the decision has been dictated by the play of those second and third team players. That was the case against the Red Raiders and is something that has to be avoided to prevent depth issues.

“We get a different set of guys rotated in and we have a couple mental let downs so it’s also a trust factor in the guys you plan on rolling in and how they’re performing in that time on that day,” he said.

Still, the Mountaineers have a deep and talented defensive front which is going to lend itself to the coaches being able to get more out of that position moving forward. Others that have seen action are Jalen Thornton and Jordan Jefferson which could fit into the equation.

West Virginia also could get back the service of redshirt junior Taijh Alston, who played a role as a pass rusher last season before sustaining a season-ending injury against Missouri, at some point this year. He has been slowly but surely working his way back after the Achilles injury and the hope is to ramp up his activity in the coming weeks to potentially get on the field.

“Really impressing in his rehab. We’re going to up his conditioning with the hope that we can get him where he can practice in the next two weeks if he doesn’t have any setbacks,” he said.

Still, Alston is ahead of the curve and could possibly see some action later in November.

Regardless, West Virginia has to find a way to spread out the snaps up front and it’s something that will be a focus of the coaches moving forward. That could make an already good defense even better.

“I have to go a better job of getting guys in and out,” line coach Jordan Lesley said.

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