West Virginia has already had a pair of bye weeks and those were as much about looking down the road as they were anything for the immediate future.

The Mountaineers have been fortunate to date with only limited positive COVID-19 tests during the course of the season, so the football program hasn’t had to deal with interruptions to practices.

Left guard James Gmiter is the only starter that has a missed a game to date for that reason which has allowed the Mountaineers to proceed with business as usual in regards to preparation. West Virginia also received positive news in the sense that no new players have tested positive for the virus after previously playing Baylor, who had to postpone their game with Oklahoma State over virus concerns.

But given the uncertain landscape in essentially all areas, some planning ahead has certainly been the norm. That was the case in the off-season when the coaching staff spent time during quarantine putting together a shell game plan against every team in the Big 12 Conference.

It made sense with free time on their hands and afforded a chance to get a head start on the team’s in the league which they could later relay to their players.

During those two open weeks, the coaches took those details and installed them during the early portion of the weeks. Last week for example, West Virginia didn’t work any Kansas until Friday and Saturday, while they spent Tuesday and Wednesday setting up things for the future.

“What we did during those two bye weeks is really install some things that we know we’re eventually going to use,” head coach Neal Brown said.

That was by design in order to have things already installed in case something would occur that could disrupt the preparation for a game at some point in the season.

It’s just another way that the coaching staff has been planning to get around some of the challenges that could arise in a college football landscape affected by the pandemic.

“That’s kind of how we handled it,” he said.

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