Why August 25th is an Important Date for WVU Football

Today is the final day of fall camp for WVU which means tomorrow the page turns to preparing for the season opener against Maryland. Through the last few weeks, the coaching staff has spent time teaching and developing to installing their playbooks, to holding a couple of scrimmages to see what they have and who is ready to make an impact this fall.

The first scrimmage a couple of weeks ago had some good and bad but head coach Neal Brown expected that.

"Today was kind of about exposing some bad habits, honestly. As coaches, we got on the sideline and let them play. We had some mistakes. Several procedure penalties, some defensive miscommunication, we've got to clean up our tackling but today's the first day we've tackled as well. I always tell our coaches, after the first scrimmage, that's when it starts. You get to that first scrimmage and now you know where you're really at. So, how much better can we get between right now until the 25th when we start Maryland prep."

The team made progress in this past weekend's scrimmage as quarterback Jarret Doege strung together 14 straight completions according to John Antonik of WVUSports.com.

"It was a good night," Brown said. "I thought our defense really started fast. That's the best they've started in any of our 11-on-11 work, but I was really proud of the offense, especially, Jarret Doege who had a slow start but really rebounded for about the last two-thirds of the scrimmage. I think that shows maturity, it shows some real mental toughness because he threw a bad interception early on and I thought he handled himself like a guy that's played a lot of football in his career."

Not only does Maryland prep begin on Wednesday but it will also be the day where the coaching staff starts to make decisions on which freshmen will get a chance to play and who will be taking a redshirt. Brown wanted to give them as much time as possible to prove themselves before having to make some decisions on guys.

"Probably on the 25th. That's when we'll start our Maryland prep so we'll give it until then. It's really more of a decision about what guys do we want to play early to see if they're ready? And what guys do we know aren't ready and let's put them in our developmental program. What they do is they start not going to position meetings and use that time to go in the weight room."

Freshmen that are most likely to see the field in 2021 are RB Justin Johnson Jr., WR Kaden Prather, OT Wyatt Milum, S Aubrey Burks, S Davis Mallinger, S Saint McLeod, and DL Edward Vesterinen.

West Virginia and Maryland will kick off on September 4th at 3:30 p.m. EST.

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