WVU Football Spring Practice is Underway

Morgantown, WV – We’re in March and the anticipation around the West Virginia Football program feels a little like the start of fall practice rather than the first practice in spring. Naturally, a lot of that has to do with the enthusiasm of newly hired head coach Neal Brown has brought to Morgantown, but it’s been awhile since excitement surrounded the spring game.

Brown and his Mountaineers began their spring practice Tuesday afternoon and it was mostly filled with getting the players on the same page as the staff.

“The good thing about Day One is that there will be a Day Two. It’ll be better.” Said Brown following practice. “The weather was great, it’s good to get back out on the field with a ball. First practice with these guys, first practice here. There was a lot of enthusiasm.”

“What I appreciate about this group is we probably have 98, 99 percent of these guys that are really trying to do the right thing, and they are bought-in.” Continued Brown. “We have very few people that aren’t. And this bunch likes to practice, which is a credit to them. It’s like I told them at the end of practice: We have a starting point, there were times today where it wasn’t pretty, which is to be expected, they haven’t played competitive football going back to the bowl game. So, there were periods that were ugly, there were periods that were really good. I thought there were some guys that redshirted last year that had some moments today.”

Now that the first practice is over and they’ve knocked the dust off the helmets, it’s about watching and studying tape to make improvements.

“So, we have a starting point. Now, it’s about getting better.” Stated Brown. “We’ll come back tomorrow, watch the film, make corrections, come back on Thursday and do it again. Basically, what we have right now is a three-day installation on offense, and we’re adding stuff each practice defensively”

I’m sure what jumped out to you in Neal’s opening statement was that not all the players buying in. My mind immediately thought of the year’s edition of the Mountaineer basketball team’s trials and tribulations of players not “buying in”. However, Neal Brown addressed those few not giving all their effort.

“I think it’s really about their peers. It’s about their peers, and what I’m saying is, it’s all about accountability. The staff can get you to so much, but it has to be about player-led accountability as well.”

That is to be expected with a new staff for a couple of players to possibly transfer and it will be something to keep an eye on.

The offense isn’t going through a major overhaul, but they still need to install the playbook and Brown went over his process of putting in his offense.

“Basically, what we do is we split it in thirds. We’ll install our base offense in three days – that’s our base runs, our base screens, base protections, play-action concepts, quick game, deep. We’ll install those in three days. We’ll try to get our motions in, as well. After that, what we’ll do is we’ll come back and add our tags, whether it’s a run tag, pass tag. The way we’re set up offensively is basically have three installs, so Practice Four we’ll come back to Day One installs. Practice Five, we’ll go back to Day Two. Over 15 (practices), we get five for each install.”

Brown later continued that he is making it easier for his players to adjust. “That’s probably been on us as much as a staff to say, ‘Hey, they used to call it this, we called it this, let’s use their terminology from a year ago because it’ll be easier for a couple of staff members to change than the whole group.”

Most of the talk leading up to spring has been about the quarterbacks. To date, we haven’t seen much from this group and don’t know what to fully expect.

Jack Allison transferred into Morgantown a couple of years ago from Miami in the hopes of taking over Dana’s offense after former QB Will Grier graduated. However, a mediocre bowl performance didn’t give much hope for the future. Although, I believe the prior staff had more to do with that than Allison’s abilities.

Redshirt freshmen QB Trey Lowe was Brown’s only other option and going into the season with only two quarterbacks in the room is far from optimal.

Brown brought in Oklahoma transfer and redshirt junior Austin Kendall before the start of the second semester, not only to add depth but to create a healthy competition. Rumors swirled around Norman at the beginning of last season that Kendall pushed future Heisman winner Kyler Murray for the starting job. Seemingly, Kendall will be the starting quarterback for the Mountaineers, but Brown has stated that everyone is on a clean slate to start the season.

Although it’s just day one and Brown indicated he couldn’t really tell you on how they performed due to all the footballs that were flying around, he did give his thoughts on what he saw on the first day.

“I thought all three of the quarterbacks did a pretty good job.” Said Brown. “Going back to Jack (Allison), I think he has some confidence. He probably didn’t play as well as he wanted to in the bowl game, but he got used to leading the offense. I thought Austin (Kendall) had command, which is difficult to do with a new team. He’s less than three months being here, so I thought he had some command. And I thought Trey Lowe (III) looked improved, just based on some of the practice stuff I saw last fall. I thought he looked improved.”

The defense is working through a major overhaul from a 3-3-5 to a 3-4. Defensive coordinator Vic Koenning has been taken it slow with his defense.

“I think (defensive coordinator) Vic (Koenning) is doing a nice job of spoon-feeding the install.” said Brownn. “Basically, we probably did two coverages today, and I thought our guys did a pretty good job of picking it up. I think a lot of it is, and it goes back to this: They are excited about practicing, they are hungry to learn, I think they put in some good amount of time, it looks like to me, especially the defensive players, have put in some good amount of time really studying the teach tapes that our defensive staff made”

That’s no surprise the defense is grasping the new system. One thing was for sure, the previous staff did a great job of identifying playmakers.

In fact, it’s no surprise that Keith Washington and the defensive backs caught Browns attention.

“I thought the defensive backs really did a nice job.” Boasted Brown. “I talked about (redshirt senior cornerback) Keith Washington (Jr.) had a pick, (redshirt senior cornerback Josh) Norwood had a couple of pass breakups at corner. I thought they did a really good job in the secondary communicating. So, just watching it live, that was something.”

Brown has officially had his first practice as a Mountaineer and reflected on the day.

“It was fun for me.” Said Brown. “My favorite time of the year is spring football. What I mean by that is it’s all teaching. It’s all teaching, and the reason I got into this profession is to teach and be around the guys. You don’t have the pressure of getting ready for a game. Don’t get it wrong, the game plan piece, playing games, that’s why you’re in the business at the end of the day. But the teaching part of the spring, it’s really pure. You’re seeing guys, and I’ll give you an example. These redshirt freshmen, you take the receivers for example, like (redshirt freshman wide receiver) Sam James, (redshirt freshman wide receiver) Bryce Wheaton. You saw them a little bit when they scrimmaged last year on Thursday. You watch a little bit of tape, just getting a feel for who they are. Then, you see how much better they look today, more confident. You’re just watching guys who haven’t been in a role moving up. That’s the fun part for me. There’s been so many things that go into this transition. So, it’s almost like you hit the practice field and say, ‘Okay, yeah, this is why I’m here.’”