Quick Hits: O-Line Still Needs Some Work, A Few Newcomers Surprising + Biggest Improvements

WVU head coach Neal Brown provided an update following today's practice.

If Offensive line can be a strength again

“I think it needs to if we’re going to continue to have success. You always start from scratch, everytime. So in January, we started new on the ’24 team and life without Zach Frazier. And we’re going to miss Doug Nester too because he was really the vocal leader in that room. Zach Frazier was a great player, not a good player. We’re going to miss both of those guys. I think sometimes the assumption is from the player’s standpoint and the coaches to a lesser degree that you just lose people and you keep rolling. Well, that’s the expectation but there’s a lot that goes into that. On Friday, our defense really handed it to our offensive line. I think part of the reason behind that is the interior part of our d-line, especially Hammond Russell, Fatorma (Mulbah), those guys and Eddy (Vesterinen) had great days and part of that is because they’ve been going against Zach Frazier day in and day out. I think that was a great wake up call for our offensive line. We fully expect to be one of the top rushing offenses in the country. We fully expect to have few tackles for loss and be one of the leaders in sacks allowed, but there’s a lot of work to go into that.”

If this transfer class will be as good as last year’s

“Offensively, (WR) Jaden Bray, we’ve talked about him. Great culture fit. He’s got really good talent. He needs some experience, he’s a little bit raw. Xavier Bausley is really hungry. He took a step up in competition, so there’s a learning curve there but he’s working at a high level and it’s important to him. On defense, (LB) Reid Carrico is a guy that I think I would use that hungry word again. Smart football player. He’s worked at a high level. He’s done a great job knowing linebacker and special teams. He understands the importance of that, that was a role he filled at Ohio State. Both Northwestern transfers (Garnett Hollis Jr., Jaheem Joseph), they’ve played a lot of football. Garnett, I think is a guy that is going to be an NFL player. Joseph is around the ball a lot and they’re both real students of the game. They’re in this building a lot. Ayden Garnes, he’s going to surprose people. He really jumped out to us when we played him last year and he can run. He can run stride for stride with EJ (Horton) who’s as fast as anybody we’re going to play. He’s always around the ball. He had multiple picks, he had two for a touchdown on Friday. I like the way he plays. He’s really smart and he can play a bunch of different positions.”

What areas have shown improvement

“Our preparation just getting ready for practice mentally and physically is much improved from where it was last spring. The other thing too is I think the energy level in our practices is much higher. I think that’s a by-product of we’ve got some new coaches but we’ve been real intentional about recruiting guys that have energy and are upbeat, positive people. And I think defensively that we’re ahead of is we’re just a much more physical football team. I think some of that has to do with some of the players we brought in on the back end and we have real depth at linebacker for the first time in a long time, and our d-line is really coming along. We’re much more physical on defense than we probably were at the end of last season.”