Brown Highlights Bright Spots & Areas That Need Cleaned up Following Scrimmage
After seven days of running drills and replicating game-like situations, the West Virginia Mountaineer football team held its first team scrimmage of the 2021 season on Saturday morning.
“It was nice to be in the stadium again. Our guys flew around and were excited to be there. The good news is we got three weeks to get ready for Maryland,” said head coach Neal Brown.
“We did some things really, really well - thought the energy was good. We had some highlights on both sides of the ball.”
Brown noted that Leddie Brown did not receive a lot of reps during the scrimmage. The staff has made a concerted effort to limit his load in the running game with the focus of expanding his role in the passing game, running routes with the receivers since the spring practice period in preparation for the upcoming season, opening the door to create depth and Tony Mathis Jr. has stepped up to the challenge.
“I thought Tony Mathis was the guy who really stood out offensively. He had a couple of touchdowns. I thought he ran the ball with great balance – broke tackles,” said Brown.
The rushing attack appeared to have success behind the offensive line, a group that made big strides from year one to year two under Neal Brown, despite not having an offseason. Brown indicated that the interior of the o-line, led by guards James Gmiter, Doug Nester, Zach Frazier, and Jordan White.
Starting quarterback Jarrett Doege has looked sharp throughout fall camp and continued into Saturday with Brown stating, “he had a nice day.”
On the defensive side of the ball, Brown said he thought they got pressure on the quarterback, the most thus far this fall camp, and mentioned sophomore defensive lineman Akheem Mesidor is continuing his development and reiterated, “I think he has a chance to be special before it’s all said and done.”
At BANDIT, VanDarius Cowan, the Alabama transfer who is entering his fourth year in the program, had his best day of camp on Saturday with a QB pressure and a forced fumble, while Lanell Carr ran with the second team had some nice one-on-one pass rushes where he won and had a big-time play in a two-minute end-of-half scenario, according to Brown.
Brown also proclaimed Penn State transfer Lance Dixon was flying around at linebacker, making some nice plays, and made a move up the depth charts.
“Today was about finding guys that are ready to compete,” said Brown. But, also adding, "it was also about exposing some bad habits."
“It was more about some of the guys that are maybe on the cusp of do they play this year, or do they not play or are they ready to be a guy that’s a first-teamer, are they a guy that’s ready to rotate? So, today was about putting pressure on them,” explained Brown. "[We’re] Trying to put them into some tough situations and see how they react. We also did every special team aspect this afternoon and got live reps with officials. We got several things that we got to clean up that phase as well.”
West Virginia had a full officiating crew in for the scrimmage and, although Brown told the officials to call it tight, he said, “We got exposed on some things from a discipline standpoint, procedure penalties and those type of things.” The infractions mainly came from the younger Mountaineers, citing eagerness as the culprit before stating they must clean up the mistakes.
“I always tell our staff, ‘Hey, after the first scrimmage, that’s when it starts.’ Cause, you see practice, everything is kind of controlled, but you get to that first scrimmage, and now, you know where we’re really at. So, how much better can we get between right now till the 25th when we start Maryland prep? How much better can we get? Cause right now is when it starts.”
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