The Sneaky Offensive Weapon for WVU That is Flying Under the Radar

West Virginia has some promise in that tight end room.

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The tight end hasn't been a fixture in West Virginia's offense, regardless of who the coach has been. And not all that long ago, Rich Rodriguez wasn't using them much, if at all. Targeting the tight end in the passing game still isn't going to be this team's bread and butter, but it will certainly be a key part in what they do moving forward, and we saw a little bit of that a year ago with Grayson Barnes.

Ryan Ward is the leader of that group, given he has a year of experience in this system under his belt, but as Rich Rod has alluded to before, he wants to play multiple guys, and when it comes to hitting the road, he'd like to travel five.

One name you may not have heard much about is Mississippi State transfer Cam Ball.

By all accounts, he had a tremendous spring, becoming a reliable target for the quarterbacks. It doesn't take much to become a quarterback's best friend when you have a 6-foot-7, 240-pound frame. If you throw it up in his general direction, more often than not, he's going to come down with it.

What type of season can we expect from Ball?

WVU Athletics Communications

He was utilized very little in the passing game while at Mississippi State, being targeted just twice on 40 pass plays in all of 2025. He had a similar role in 2024, but was a little more involved in 2023, catching eight passes for 83 yards.

That won't be the case here. I'd expect him to be in that 15-20 catch range, with many of those targets being balls into the end zone.

He'll be a top option in the red zone, of course, and could be a safety blanket over the middle of the field on third down. WVU's quarterbacks are comfortable throwing it to him, knowing he's someone who can make a play regardless of how good the coverage is.

As a blocker, he still has some work to do, but he's not completely foreign to it. He was asked to serve as an extension in the run game a bunch during his time at Buffalo earlier in his career, and did so last year at Mississippi State. With his size and length, he should be able to move people — it just comes down to technique and understanding how to use his size and play with leverage.