Neal Brown Evaluates Jimmy Bell Jr.'s Spring Game Performance

Is there a future in football for the WVU center?

Jimmy Bell Jr. isn't completely foreign to football. He played in high school and received some interest from a few colleges but ultimately decided to go with basketball. Having that football background allowed him to treat these past few weeks much differently than someone who had no experience in the game and tried to make the transition.

That said, it's still going to be an uphill battle for Bell to actually see the field and play a major role on the offensive line. The good thing is, if he chooses to play football he will have two years of eligibility remaining and he'll need to use this year primarily as a development year. Just because you have a big body and good feet doesn't necessarily mean you're going to go out and have success right away blocking Power Five talent. It takes time.

During Saturday's spring game, Bell was able to log some snaps under his belt and did a decent job. He flashed his potential on a few snaps while also showing how difficult the transition is in a few others. Bell was responsible for the only flag of the day, getting called for a hold which was quite obvious. He also allowed a sack, but these couple of blips were to be expected. It was never going to be perfect. You just hoped that he would show he is capable of getting the job done and I do think he showed that here and there.

Here is what head coach Neal Brown had to say about his performance and how he's come along since joining the program.

"He worked out for two weeks fundamentally and today was his sixth practice. And you see improvement. Today was probably the second time that nobody's been out there telling him exactly what to do and he got beat for a sack today just because he didn't set off the ball. In pass protection, if he'll get depth in his set, he's going to be really hard to beat just because his arms are so long. To give you some perspective tackles in the NFL, you talk about wingspan. They're usually in the 84-85 [inch range]. That's good. He's 87 plus. He's really long. There's some fundamental things and just flow of the game that he's got to get into. He and I are going to spend some time early part of this week and I'll talk to Coach Huggins and I think we'll come to a pretty quick resolution on where it all stands."

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