WVU evaluating, developing options at center

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Another offseason brings more question marks for West Virginia’s offensive line.

One of the spots in question is the center position which has seen two-year starter Matt Jones depart for Youngstown State and backup Jacob Buccigrossi miss time due to injury. Two surgeries, one on each shoulder, will sideline Buccigrossi through the spring.

Jones’s decision to transfer and Buccigrossi’s absence have left head coach Neal Brown and offensive line coach Matt Moore searching for and evaluating their options at a position that is arguably the most crucial on the offensive line when it comes to communication.

“The center position is something that is really important, and we have to establish a two-deep there, and we have some young guys that it’s time,” head coach Neal Brown said.

Emerging from the pack at the center position have been redshirt freshman Briason Mays, who served as the team’s third-string center last season and redshirt junior Chase Behrndt, who played mostly at guard last season and saw action in 11 games including three starts.

Both have stood out over the course of the offseason to the newly assembled staff and embody their qualities and standards that come with being a starting center.

These standards and responsibilities include being an outspoken player who can communicate to the rest of the offensive line and identify defensive fronts as well as the unit’s responsibilities at the line prior to the snap.

“You want a guy that’s going to walk up and he’s going to project his voice and he’s got to be the quarterback,” Moore said. “In my offense, you’re the quarterback of the o-line. You’re telling everybody what they’re seeing. You walk up, you call the front every time, you’re pointing (at the) MIKE (linebacker). Early on, you’re letting everybody kind of know what to do.”

Another characteristic Moore looks for in his ideal center is confidence even when he is in the wrong--something he’s noticed in Behrndt.

“He doesn’t wear his feelings on his sleeve,” Moore said. “He’ll be wrong, but he’ll be confident when he’s wrong.”

Come the start of spring practice on March 19, Mays and Behrndt will rotate in and out with the first and second teams, according to Moore. Once someone emerges as the starter, Moore will work the backup at guard.

However, Moore believes that whoever fills the backup center role may not serve his entire purpose at that spot if they’re one of the team’s top-five players on the line.

“I’m not going to let one of the top-five guys be the backup center,” Moore said. “He may be the backup center...he may be the starting left guard and the backup center.”

Moore, who will also serve as the Mountaineers’ co-offensive coordinator alongside running backs coach, Chad Scott, prefers to be two-deep at the center position on the depth chart and have four total players who are capable of snapping.

Behind Mays and Behrndt is in-state, redshirt sophomore walk-on Adam Stilley who adds depth and fifth-year senior Kelby Wickline, who’s learning the center position and will serve as another option for the Mountaineers who can step in if needed.

“He’s kind of built where he’s in between a guard and a tackle, so he can go in there and play if we needed him and plus he understands the game,” Moore said of Wickline. “He’s one of the those that can learn it pretty quick if we needed him to.”

The purpose of teaching someone like Wickline how to snap and play center if needed has to deal with the team traveling with 70 players to road games. In this case, Moore prefers to have someone who can snap that also works within the first or second team at either guard or tackle.

“I gotta have three guys that can snap,” Moore said. “I’m not always going to carry three centers, so that third guy may be somebody that’s playing right tackle or somebody’s that playing left guard.”

The center position and the rest of the offensive line are a work in progress and depth is in issue as spring practice draws closer for West Virginia. By the end of spring, the coaching staff hopes to have a better idea of who’ll fit where on the offensive line and take over at center.

“We put a lot on our center,” Brown said. “That’s as important of a spot as we have on either side of the ball.”

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