Rich Rod Drops Names of WVU Players Who May Be Ready for Bigger Roles

You can expect to see more of these Mountaineers as the season moves along.

West Virginia University linebacker Jason Hall Jr. | Christopher Hall - West Virginia on SI

We may be reaching the midway point of the season, but there is still plenty of time for guys to make a move and see more playing time.

Defensive coordinator Zac Alley rotated in some new faces last week, including freshman linebacker Antoine Sharp Jr., and more will be thrown into the mix as they search for answers.

There is more on the offensive side as well. Rich Rodriguez rattled off some names we may see more of in the coming weeks.

“Naq (Rogers), who’s a new running back we got. I really should have tried to get Chris Talley and (Martavious) Boswell) in the game and get Amari (Latimer) some carries). We’ve got more running backs ready to go. Cam is such a good player; it’s hard to take him out. But I think we got some more guys there that I think can help us. TaRon Francis at wide receiver, Keon Hutchins at wide receiver; those guys are getting ready to go. Cyrus (Traugh) is playing more and more each week. Defensively, we’re still searching in a lot of ways for certain guys that could help us. Jason Hall has played a lot of special teams; I think you’ll see him playing more and more defense.”

Hall is one I feel like should have been in the rotation from the jump and has played well enough to deserve an expanded role much earlier than this. He has to get more involved at linebacker. And with the addition of NaQuari Rogers, I doubt we'll see much of Boswell and Talley, although Rodriguez mentioned them. Heck, Amari Latimer hasn't even gotten much burn to this point as the No. 2 and will almost certainly be bumped to No. 3 in the rotation once Rogers is fully a go.

Speaking of which, Rodriguez provided a small update on Rogers during his radio show Monday night.

"Last week was really his first week of practice, so he had a week of acclimation wearing pads and all that. It was his first week, but he's two weeks in the system. He's a mature guy. He's a very conscientious guy, and just the little bit I've seen in practice, this guy's got some skills. He played for Utah, and I really like his approach to it. He spent the first week on the scout team, and he was like, 'Coach, I'll go down there and give them a look.' I'm anxious to see what he can do."