West Virginia has opened fall camp number five under Brown
West Virginia has entered one of the most exciting times of the year with fall camp opening and the season right around the corner.
Albeit with some changes from how it used to be done.
"Most of you are old enough to remember when you couldn't meet in the summer and you didn't have OTAs," head coach Neal Brown said. "This was truly your first practice, that's not the case anymore. Thankful for that.
While the Mountaineers opened their first day of fall camp Wednesday, the team was able to hold 16 OTA sessions during the summer and met quickly with the coaches before that in order to give them a running start into practice.
The first two days of fall camp is going to be dedicated to teaching the team how to meet, how to walk-through and how to practice while ensuring that they know their signals, alignments and assignments. That makes the pair of days more of a strain on the mental side than anything but it's truly hard to evaluate until players are in shells.
As for the structure of the early practices, it's organized chaos with a lot of people moving around to different areas of the sessions. The Mountaineers are focused on two-spotting during all of the team and group periods to give everybody on the team reps and help acclimate the younger players and get them evaluated.
"I think that's important," Brown said.
The first two and half weeks are all about preparing for the season and all of the opponents on the schedule while the last two weeks will be strictly directed toward preparation for the season opener against Penn State.
As far as the team itself, everybody is with the team that was expected although some of those players are either out or limited due to injury. Bandit Brayden Dudley had off-season surgery that will limit him although he is expected back early in the year if not by the first game, while freshman linebacker Josiah Trotter continues to rehab.
Defensive lineman Asani Redwood is ahead of schedule in his rehab, while Davis Mallinger is limited at wide receiver as he recovers from surgery at the end of the year.
The Mountaineers will have around 120 players in camp with the focus now on football and getting prepared to improve.
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