4/2/2022 football Edit

West Virginia using spring to prepare for fall

The West Virginia Mountaineers football team has some clear goals to accomplish this spring.

Keenan Cummings • WVSports

Managing Editor

Spring ball is obviously important, but it isn’t lost on head coach Neal Brown that the 15-practices essentially serve as early preparation for fall camp.

Consider the time leading up to the April 23 Gold-Blue game as an early audition of sorts, where the current players on the roster will have every opportunity to showcase that the coaches can win the games on the upcoming schedule with them.

The same process will play out for the players that will arrive in the summer over the first two weeks of fall camp, but that is down the road.

The focus now is to sort out where certain players stand, while reinforcing some of the basics such as establishing how the Mountaineers want to practice and displaying growth in areas such as fundamentals, understanding of the scheme and with situational awareness.

“These are the guy that are on the roster right now. It’s their opportunity to show they are ready to play against Pitt and the rest of our Big 12 schedule,” Brown said.

To improve the fundamental aspect, West Virginia placed an emphasis on that throughout the winter and tried to create pressure situations to ensure those are being upheld in difficult circumstances. The defensive scheme is in its fourth year but in terms of the new offensive system under coordinator Graham Harrell it’s about simply installing it. However, Brown has been encouraged by the lack of missed assignments.

The only way to improve situational awareness is to put the pads on and play football which is something that the coaches did Thursday. The goal is to improve the understanding of the down and distance as opposed to simply just playing the game of football.

“It’s not repeating the same mistakes. Fundamentals wise, we want to stress those but your effort can overcome some things especially defensively,” Brown said.

West Virginia has been getting some situational work with the defense in order to develop and further grow the overall package. That requires some projecting on the part of the coaches as to what the personnel will resemble when fall rolls around, but even without that currently in place there are quality reps that can be had throughout the defense.

That might not mean all 11 bodies will be in place, but it could provide valuable experience with new looks for 9 or 7 players at a time that do fit the needs.

One area that West Virginia has to improve is in the realm of man coverage as teams have adjusted to max protect the defense when they go zone and it puts them in bad situations in terms of numbers rushing the passer. Brown wants to be able to send six people and cover in the back end to combat that.

On the flip side, the offense is attempting to focus on some of the looks that they’ll be getting from teams that they will play in the fall and work off of that.

Finally, this spring there has been a focus and sense of urgency on the season opener against Backyard Brawl rival Pittsburgh. That is something that the coaching staff and team didn’t do enough of last year against Maryland the result was a loss on the road to the Terrapins.

“We’re being intentional about our buildup to this game,” Brown said.

Spring football is oozing with opportunity for those currently participating, but the coaching staff has some clear hurdles that they want to clear in the process to prepare them for what lies ahead.

West Virginia using spring to prepare for fall

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