West Virginia head coach Neal Brown realizes that special teams were an issue last season.

Two areas in particular that must improve are kickoff returns and coverage. The Mountaineers began their drives around their own 21-yard line on average largely fueled by poor decision making.

That’s why the Mountaineers invested in options that can return in the transfer portal such as Kent State wide receiver Ja’Shaun Poke and Minnesota defensive back Beanie Bishop.

“Bishop's returned a lot of kicks and Ja'Shaun Poke's been a high-level kickoff returner. We're going to put those guys back there and we're going to coach them up to make better decisions,” Brown said.

Poke averaged 29.4-yards per return last season for the Golden Flashes and has returned a total of 43-kicks in his career averaging 25.8 per return.

“He’s exactly what you want. He has legit raw speed. He’s returned in ruckus environments. I’m excited to see how he sees it,” special teams coordinator Jeff Koonz said.

The Mountaineers have struggled in the department of kick returns in the past several seasons and while it hasn’t necessarily been an issue of speed instead the ability to see and hit the hole.

“There is a knack to it and he’s shown on tape he has that knack,” Koonz said.

Bishop on the other hand returned a total of 29 kicks during his time at Western Kentucky at just under 25 yards per attempt.

Both of those would be significant upgrades over the 17.7 that the Mountaineers generated on their kickoff returns a season ago that often put the offense behind the eight ball.

"Our field position differential has got to be better, " Brown said.

That has to improve if the Mountaineers want to take the next step and the same goes for the other side of things when it comes to holding opponents from starting in a favorable spot.

“We lost the field position battle really if you look at our losses, we got our tail kicked in field position and it goes back to those two units a lot of it,” Brown said.

That’s something that the Mountaineers stressed with technique during the summer in off-season training activities and have been able to execute those in live situations. That is different from the spring where the focus was on individual evaluation.

And the hope is that translates into success in an area where the program has definitely struggled.

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