MORGANTOWN — West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez said every position was up for grabs, even the running back position, which Jahiem White was thought to have locked up. There was a lot of change from last season, new coach, new staff and a lot of new players. There are some returners, but not a lot.
The Mountaineers’ secondary was filled with leaders last season, like leading tackler safety Anthony Wilson Jr. and pass breakup leader corner Garnett Hollis Jr. Now, the secondary is made up of multiple transfers and some young players from last season, who decided to stay after Neal Brown was fired. There’s no secure spot.
Cornerbacks coach Rod West is in charge of picking the corners for the secondary, looking to improve the poor pass defense from last season.
Through three practices, West believes his corners and the rest of the secondary retained most of the information learned this spring, and in the first couple of practices, most of the time spent is getting the new transfers acclimated.
“For the new guys just trying to create a spirit of competition in that room,” West said. “I think so far, they’ve done a good job of translating what we talked about in the main room to the field. I say every day, just making progress, trying to be more consistent as a whole.”
West tried to make learning the playbook as simple as possible for the new transfers. He made the playbook so that when a player masters seven plays, those plays are used in variations for new ones. West wants the learning curve to be less steep.
The secondary needs to learn quickly and adapt on the fly. Every day at practice, West’s corners face off against Rich Rodriguez’s relentless tempo offense, so there’s not a lot of time to think between plays. But, it’s helped because most offenses in college football run tempo now, so it’s just a preview of what a game will be like, and arguably it’ll be easier during the game because the tempo won’t be as fast as Rodriguez’s.
“There’s gonna be some learning curves,” West said. “And the offensive staff, coach Rodriguez, coach Trickett and all those guys, they do a great job. We have some talented guys on offense, and they put them in good places, and they create some stressful situations for our guys. We welcome that stress. It makes us better. So it’s kind of iron sharpening iron.”
During the first couple of practices, West is doing a lot of evaluating, and spending afternoons and nights, breaking down practice film to see who separates themselves from the rest. While watching film, West is watching who is consistently making plays. Right now, there’s no one who’s stood out, and like Rodriguez with his quarterbacks, he’s not opposed to rotating all his players if they all are consistent.
“If we have 13 guys that’re consistently making plays, so we’ll grade every day, and grade production,” West said. “If you’re going to be top of the board production-wise, then we have to find different ways to get you on the football field.”
The other important detail West is looking for in the secondary is to hit the turnover quota. Defensive coordinator Zac Alley and the rest of the defensive staff want to change WVU’s history of a lack of turnovers, so they’ve set a standard of three-plus turnovers per practice leading up to the first game. In the first two practices, they’ve hit that quota.
West has focused on teaching fundamentals for creating turnovers.
“If he’s just trying to catch ball, being violent through it, through his arms, maybe that leads to deflection and great pursuit on the backside, getting guys to the ball,” West said. “We are always preaching, if I’m the second man in, I’m trying to punch, break the ball out. No.1, it’s going to take pursuit and great effort to get to the ball. Great things happen when you run to the football. No. 2, just violence at the point of contact.”
West talked about wanting his defensive backs to be violent a couple of times. Rodriguez didn’t talk about violence, but it fits under the umbrella of playing with a hard edge. Violence isn’t usually associated with defensive backs. Usually, that comes from the trenches or the linebackers, but it makes sense on a Rodriguez squad.
The secondary is just getting started, but West is instilling early a sense of urgency when his squad takes the field. He wants spectators to see his group play hard.
“We’re gonna be extremely aggressive,” West said. “We’re going to play fast. We’re going to play physical. Every play when people watch our film, they are gonna say we have 11 guys running to the football like their hair on fire. Want to play violent, and want to be smart and optimistic at the same time.”
