WVU Treated to Several 'Pleasant Surprises' in Fall Camp

A number of players turned some heads throughout the month of August.

Heading into fall camp, the coaching staff had a pretty good idea as to who would be playing and how much. But the deeper you get into camp, the more that picture changes. Some guys exceed expectations and some may fall short, showing that they're not quite ready to be thrown into a significant role. 

The good news for WVU is there have been more than a handful of players that turned heads and are further along than the coaching staff anticipated. 

Monday afternoon, head coach Neal Brown rattled off names of those who fit that description.

"[RB] Justin Johnson has been consistent. He's been through I guess 15 practices now, just really consistent over the whole time. From the whole standpoint pass protection, blocking in the run game, catching the ball out of the backfield, he's been the most consistent in that room. [WR] Jarel Williams has been a surprise. He's had a nice camp. Going into his redshirt freshman year, he's made a big jump. Defensively, DayDay Hawkins is much improved. Fatorma Mulbah has been a pleasant surprise. He really came in in shape and sometimes those guys that sit a semester don't. Tomi [Durojaiye] is coming on. I thought he'd be a little further away, but I think he's getting closer to being ready than maybe I anticipated."

Brown also mentioned true freshmen wide receivers Traylon Ray and Rodney Gallagher III, who will both play in the season opener against Penn State.

"Rodney's got to get stronger and he knows that. So does Traylon. They're going to look drastically different a year from now because neither one of those guys are early grads. Traylon played baseball until the end of June, so he's only been here since July. I'm really pleased with where they are at from a conditioning standpoint. I think this just speaks to their overall athleticism...a lot of times when you practice in camp and they wear their GPS units, what you see is some reductions in speeds. And what you see is especially some young guys that aren't as strong as some of the older guys is their 90% efforts go down. Not go down because they're loafing, just because they can't physically run rep after rep as fast as possible. With those guys it hasn't shown which I think speaks to just their raw ability, raw athleticism."

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