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New Starters Provide A Spark As Offensive Line Makes Major Strides in Week 3

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Morgantown, WV – Mountaineer fans everywhere let out collective groans as it was announced prior to the game that both of WVU’s starting offensive guards, Josh Sills (shoulder) and Mike Brown (illness) would not play against North Carolina State. These absences set up WVU to have three inexperienced starters along the interior of the line with redshirt freshman James Gmiter starting in Brown’s place on the left side, sophomore JUCO transfer John Hughes replacing Sills on the right, and redshirt freshman Briason Mays making his first career appearance at center.

The three were able to perform admirably, along with veteran Chase Behrndt, making clear improvements upfront throughout the game. Mays did not miss a beat, working exclusively with the first team in warmups and providing key stability and insight on each offensive possession. Gmiter and Hughes each held up well across the front also, providing a steady pocket for quarterback Austin Kendall to go through his reads and make the correct throw, something he had very little time to do in the last two weeks.

WVU’s struggles along the offensive line had been well-documented through the first two weeks of play. A lack of reliable depth appeared to be a major issue and the guys in the starting spots were not performing at a high level. With the chips down today and two starters unavailable, the Mountaineer line buckled down and put together their best performance of the young season. Gmiter, a defensive lineman before Neal Brown arrived was outstanding in his first career start, proving that he is more than capable to spell starter Mike Brown and should be looked at as part of the future upfront. John Hughes came on as a late addition from junior college but has shown that even in the absence of Josh Sills, the right guard position is one of WVU’s strongest in the trenches.

Enough credit cannot be given to Briason Mays after his performance this afternoon. As a redshirt freshman making his first career start,  he put out arguably the best performance of the three men who have made starts at center this season. Coming from the same high school as Trey Lowe, Mays was seen as sort of a happy benefit of bringing in the quarterback but thus far has been the more important of that duo. Moving to center just this spring following the departure of Matt Jones, he battled Chase Behrndt for the starting spot but neither made the start against JMU as Sills slid over from guard instead. After the abysmal performance of the line at Missouri, the coaches announced that younger players would be getting a chance to prove themselves in practice and in the game this week and it appears Mays did just that.

Offensive line coach Matt Moore was very pleased with the performance of his young lineman, especially without seeing two of them in game action until today.

“We were kind of put in a situation with Mike Brown being sick and Josh having an injury, explained Moore. “We couldn’t play them, so we had to just say, ‘hey we gotta get these guys ready.’ Like I said, they did a great job of preparing themselves all week and we put full confidence in them and we said, ‘hey guys, let’s go, you can do it.’. Just go out there and play hard and we’ll live with the mistakes.”

The strides that were made by the WVU offensive line have to be extremely encouraging for both the coaching staff and the WVU fanbase. This is especially impressive when considering the fact that three new starters were installed between the end of the Missouri game and kickoff this afternoon. These are the types of performances the offensive line will need to have if WVU wants to have success in Neal Brown’s first season.

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