West Virginia mapping out playing plan for freshmen

West Virginia has passed the half-way point of the season which means decisions must be made when it comes to preserving or exhausting redshirt years for players on the roster.

That means some decisions moving forward on which players are going to be used up to the four-game threshold and which ones will become factors moving forward. It’s a critical decision for some on the roster as the alternatives are spending a year of eligibility or keeping the redshirt in-tact.

Coaches have to weigh the risk and reward of using up a year of eligibility for potentially a handful of snaps and with the way many freshmen adjust you’re not starting to see the game slow down until after around 4-6 weeks of the season.

That makes this past week an important one for the Mountaineers as you often see jumps in progression at this stage of the schedule.

“They start to see not only how to play, how to practice but when they watch film how to study opponents and those things start to become habits,” defensive coordinator Jordan Lesley said.

The open week came at the right time as well in order to properly evaluate where certain players are at and how they could factor into the rotations moving forward and it seems that a list of possible options that will be involved for the remainder of the year has emerged.

On the offensive side, West Virginia intends to continue playing offensive lineman Wyatt Milum, running back Justin Johnson, wide receiver Kaden Prather although none of those should come as a surprise considering each of those have already met their four-game limits.

As far as the defense, safety Aubrey Burks has already surpassed the four-game threshold while the Mountaineers plan on playing safety Davis Mallinger (3 games) and defensive lineman Eddie Vesterinen (3 games) for sure. As for others, the coaches are still evaluating players such as safety Saint McLeod (4 games) and defensive lineman Hammond Russell (1 game).

Out of that trio of players on the fence, it seems McLeod could be the most likely to avoid a redshirt because he has started to carve out a role in the secondary while Wilson-Lamp has been used primarily on special teams through the first six games. The same can be said for Burks, but given the departure of Kerry Martin to the transfer portal he could be in line for snaps at the safety position.

It's a difficult balancing act for coaches because obviously players want to get on the field but you have to manage if they’re truly ready to contribute without risking their confidence in the future.

“If you give them too much you risk them seeing early failure which is hard to overcome but you also have to give them enough to challenge them to get them to the point where they feel very comfortable and know they can attack it,” offensive coordinator Gerad Parker said. “How quickly can they kick the wall down? How do you equip them to do so? It’s a mental mind game.”

That mind game is what West Virginia will have to balance as they bring their young players along moving forward with five games and several more decisions remaining.

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