Neal Brown Gives His Own Assessment of WVU’s Offensive Line

The offensive line is an essential piece of any football team, but especially one that plans to rely so much on the running game. To that end, WVU head coach Neal Brown instructed offensive line coach Matt Moore to make each member of his line as versatile as possible before the season.

And after seeing Moore enact this strategy for a few weeks, Brown is now ready to give his thoughts and how the process is coming along. Before doing this, Brown first detailed the overall plan from his perspective.

WVU OL Coach Matt Moore Explains Need to Make Offensive Line Versatile

“So what we’ve really done, what Matt [Moore] and I have done is we’re really not necessary evaluating the collective like when all five of them are out there because we’re moving them around. We really felt we needed to come out of the Spring with some versatility, right?,” said Brown before expanding on his thought process further. “And when I talk about versatility, I’m talking about Doug, Brandon and Ja’Quay. Those guys have versatility. And figuring out how do we get our best five out there and let’s trial and error a little bit here this Spring and find out how they’ll all going to do,” he said.

Brown then gave his thoughts about a couple individual players and why moving them around will help both them as players and the team as a whole.

“And all three of those guys have played all three positions, center, guard and tackle. We’re locked in at left tackle with Wyatt and Thomas at left guard. And so just mixing those pieces a little bit and then really trying to push and get Sullivan Weidman, get him out there with the ones. Make him go against Sean Martin in one-on-one pass pro. Mo Hamilton, really trying to push him who’s got athleticism and pushing him and putting him in some tight situations some,” explained Brown.

The hope is that if WVU is forced to deal with an injury, in particular to veteran leaders Zach Frazier or Doug Nester, someone else will be prepared to fill the void, at least to a serviceable level.

WVU OL Doug Nester Opens Up About Decision to Return to Mountaineers

Moore gave his assessment ahead of Brown the week earlier.

“Always trying to create more chemistry.. and a lot of guys are moving around.. trying to create guys that can play different spots because you never know. You always want to have your best five out there and always want multiple guys to be able to play center,” Moore explained.

Moore also feels this is essential for WVU now that the Mountaineers know they will be led by a mobile quarterback. Having mobility at the quarterback position, and that will be the case with either Garrett Greene or Nicco Marchiol, can help mask mistakes from the line, but it also makes having athletic lineman a necessity.