MORGANTOWN — For the first time in five years, the WVU football team will not have a Stills brother anchoring the middle of its defense in 2023.
For years the Stills brothers, Darius and Dante, were the lynchpins to what the Mountaineers did in their front seven. With both now graduating to the professional ranks, WVU will need someone to step up at defensive tackle.
The top candidates this spring are 309-pound redshirt-junior Mike Lockhart and 300-pound redshirt-sophomore Hammond Russell IV.
“We need them,” head coach Neal Brown said after practice Saturday. “They’re probably as integral for us as anybody on either side (of the ball) as far as needing to make a jump this spring, and they have. Through 12 practices, they’ve gotten better. They’ve not arrived yet, but I thought both of those guys did some nice things.”
Lockhart transferred to WVU from Georgia Tech before last season and played in all 12 games in 2022 in a depth role. He finished the year with 13 tackles, one for a loss.
“He spent a lot of time in the portal not in shape (last summer),” defensive line coach Andrew Jackson said of Lockhart. “I think now you’ll see a kid that’s in better shape, lifting weights and running.”
Russell has played in two games in two seasons in Morgantown but was injured for much of 2022.
“He’s progressed quite fine,” Jackson said. “No. 1, he’s healthy and I think he’s a more mature kid. He’s always got a great smile, happy-go-lucky, but I think he’s gotten to know when to be serious and when to lock in.”
Darius Stills had 19.5 tackles for loss and 9.5 sacks in his final two seasons at WVU and Dante left the program as the all-time career leader with 53 tackles for loss. Lockhart and Russell don’t have that kind of previous production, but Brown believes they have the talent to fill that gap.
“Both of them have ability,” Brown affirmed. “It starts with ability and they both have it, they’ve both worked hard on their conditioning. Both of them are tall, but they have the ability to play low. Both are talented, they use their hands well and they’re doing a better job versus double teams.”
Even if neither player puts up Stills-like stats in 2023, they can still be useful, and productive, contributors on defense as long as they do their job in the middle.
“A lot of what we ask them to do is take some heat off the linebackers and they’re understanding their job,” Brown said. “Your job is not always to make the play, but to make somebody else make the play and they have a better understanding of that.”
Russell is one of a number of young defenders who will finally have a chance to get on the field in 2023. Others are bandit linebacker Taurus Simmons, cornerback Andrew Wilson-Lamp and linebackers Caden Biser and Jairo Faverus.
“I think they’ve looked around to their left and right and realized that it’s their time,” Jackson said. “They’ve been here three-plus years and I think they want to play now.”
WVU will also have Penn State transfer Fatorma Mulbah in the mix at defensive tackle in the summer and fall. The redshirt-junior is not on campus this spring as he finished his degree at PSU.
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