West Virginia has only had a handful of departures by way of the transfer portal, but one key loss has been redshirt freshman linebacker Josiah Trotter.
Trotter, 6-foot-2, 238-pounds, missed all of his first season due to injury but emerged in his second year with the program recording 92 tackles, 4 tackles for loss, half a sack and an interception.
That leaves a big void at the linebacker position for the Mountaineers after he elected to enter the transfer portal after that promising campaign.
But that means that somebody else is going to have to step up in the Frisco Bowl against Memphis.
“It’s next man up. We’ve got a lot of guys that have played a lot of snaps in that room,” defensive coordinator Jeff Koonz said.
Redshirt sophomore Trey Lathan will be counted on of course as he has 72 tackles, 8 tackles for loss and 2 sacks while redshirt junior Reid Carrico who has 52 tackles and 1.5 tackles for loss has also played a significant role for the Mountaineers down the stretch.
“The thing I like about Reid is he’s really attention to detail. He does a great job making sure he’s fitting where he’s supposed to fit. Using his hands, plays big – he’s a bigger body when we put him out to the field,” Koonz said. “And that’s what we want out of him. He pulls his pin.”
The Mountaineers also have others that can play a significant role filling in such as sophomore Ben Cutter, redshirt junior Caden Biser and a pair of true freshmen such as Curtis Jones and Rickey Williams.
“I’m excited about it because we have depth,” Koonz said.
“We’ve got pieces. We’ve got very capable players here. We’ve got very good players that we recruited really, really hard and excited to see them take advantage of the opportunity,” he added.
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