WVU Defense Has Surprised Zac Alley by Exceeding Some Early Expectations

Finding the right eleven on the field can be challenging for a defensive coordinator in his first year on the job, but especially when you have as many new faces as Zac Alley has at West Virginia.

Usually, having this much roster turnover in one offseason spells trouble for a team or one side of the ball, but after the way that group got carved up on a weekly basis, it's probably a good thing that it went through a makeover.

There have been some promising signs throughout the month of August, most notably how well the team is flying to the ball and finishing tackles — an area that was a massive problem around this time over the last few preseasons for WVU.

Still, there's going to be a lot of self-discovering this Saturday when they square off with Robert Morris in the opener. It's not the stiffest of competition, but it'll give Alley and Co. a good feel for what they can do well and who can help them this fall.

West Virginia University Defensive Coordinator Zac Alley | West Virginia University quarterback Max Anderson

“I’ve got a pretty good feel for who we are and what we’re going to be," Alley said on Tuesday. "Obviously, we’ve got a lot of guys who have never played here. I don’t know if we have anybody on defense that started maybe more than two games here, three games here overall. I’m not sure, but it’s somewhere around that number. Just excited to see how those guys perform. Some guys come from schools where there was 65,000 people out there screaming, some guys they had no fans in front of them. It depends on how they’ll react and how they take in the environment on game day. But as far as the ability, I feel like we can play, and I feel pretty good about where we’re at.”

From the day he took the job all the way up until kickoff, Alley has had to check off a ton of boxes to feel comfortable heading into that first snap. It started with recruiting, selling the vision, getting players to buy in, teaching them the scheme, coaching up their technique, evaluating the talent, and putting a depth chart/game plan together. That's a lot to do in one offseason.

Fortunately, he has a pretty senior-laden group, which makes things much easier, considering there's only so many ways to teach/coach coverages, blitz packages, etc.

West Virginia University linebacker Chase Wilson | Christopher Hall – West Virginia on SI

“Picking up the scheme and some of the things that are required to be good in this defense, I feel like we’ve probably exceeded my expectations on some of those things. I still believe we’re learning to grow and play as a defense overall. Your goal would be to be better Week 6 than you are Week 1. There’s a lot of guys that don’t have meaningful, in-game experience, at least not at West Virginia.”

The first string of this defense should be able to hold its own and then some early on. What will take this unit, and team for that matter, to the next level is establishing playable depth. As Rich Rodriguez has said on numerous occasions, he wants to break the record for playing the most guys in a season. At the same time, though, he's not going to just play guys just to play them. They have to earn that right.

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