West Virginia must look at replacement plan on defense
West Virginia had two players carted off the field against TCU which was obviously a scary situation.
Starting safety Aubrey Burks and starting linebacker Tray Lathan were injured during the game and transported to a local hospital. Burks appeared to injure his neck on a play on special teams, while Lathan injured his leg chasing down a ball carrier late in the game.
Burks has full use of his extremities and was negative in all the testing done but now will head into the protocol which will determine when he can rejoin the team and get back on the field. There is no timetable for when that will occur, given the obvious trauma associated with being carted off the field.
Lathan will miss the remainder of the season after having surgery to repair a lower leg injury but is expected to make a full recovery and be back in time for next season.
However, just five games into the 2023 campaign the Mountaineers now have to look at replacements just in case in the situation with Burks and definitely for Lathan. Injuries are never a good thing, but it can be argued that those two spots were already the thinnest on the entire roster.
At linebacker the solution seems more clear cut as true freshman Ben Cutter will be elevated into the starting lineup to fill in for Lathan. The North Carolina native appeared in 47 snaps in the game against the Horned Frogs and was around the football for the most part.
Lathan is the second major injury to occur to the already thin linebacker room after true freshman Josiah Trotter was lost for the season in the spring due to a knee injury.
“He’s played a good number of snaps the past couple weeks defensively. He’s ready to do it, true freshman, but he’ll be ready. He’s physical, he’s smart and he’ll be ready,” head coach Neal Brown said.
Behind Cutter, the Mountaineers are expected to rely on both Jairo Faverus and Caden Biser to help spell if needed but that group is going to have to elevate their game to replace Lathan.
It is too early to tell when Burks is going to return to the field and Brown wants to give him some time before they figure out that part of the equation. The outcome after the injury was the best possible scenario for Burks but there can still be some lingering mental effects from the scare of it all.
Brown plans to sit down with safeties coach Dontae Wright during the bye week and devise a plan as to how the backend of the defense could look if Burks isn’t ready for the Houston game. The most obvious outcome would be to elevate Marcis Floyd to the starting lineup until Burks returns but that isn’t set.
West Virginia has the next couple days to figure things out.
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