West Virginia is in the homestretch of fall camp and that means that the Mountaineers are entering into what head coach Neal Brown refers to as the hardest week of the year.
It’s a prove-it week for those on the roster as Brown and the coaching staff want to see what his football team can do and who will emerge at various levels from within it.
“Can we do hard things better? And we’ve got to prove it,” he said. “Who can we count on? Who are the newcomers that will play? Who are the guys that are kind of stepping up from a backup or special teams guy and now they’re going to step to the forefront?”
And those are just a few of the questions as West Virginia was to identify who can play man coverage, who can blitz, who will they call plays for on offense and who will they run behind among many others.
West Virginia will be full pads today before Wednesday is a lighter practice and Thursday is an off day. There will be another light day Friday before the second scrimmage Saturday with around 100 plays. The following week will have Monday and Tuesday practices before the mock game under the lights Wednesday night will close fall camp and preparation will truly begin for Penn State.
“I wish we could make it as hard as possible because I think that’s when the team leadership shows up,” Brown said. “It’s a prove it week. It’s the second week of camp, everybody is going through the same thing but how can we do it better than people we have to play?”
As part of that West Virginia has been putting players in difficult situations and creating adversity in order to see how they will respond. It’s a feat that is made easier by the competition level across the roster.
In order to see the field, West Virginia needs players to be available to practice and with that comes plenty of film and tracking in order to see where a player stands in his position group.
There isn’t much guessing that has to be done on where a player stands anymore because each are given clear feedback on how they perform in both percentage and production on a daily basis for each practice. The percentage piece is defined as effort, alignment and assignment while production is self-explanatory.
The Mountaineers treat fall camp much like the NFL in the sense that the scrimmages are like pre-season games and instead of cutting players, the focus is on building up who is going to play. And with things being tracked, there isn’t a lot of grey area on where players stand.
“It’s real clear any type of team setting what the performance was,” Brown said.
Coaches still must battle the crutch of experience over a younger player who is hungry and displays talent but again that’s where this week comes into play by making things more challenging.
“Anything that gets somebody out of their comfort zone helps,” he said.
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