Coordinator Jordan Lesley doesn’t feel any different about his West Virginia defensive group.
The Mountaineers allowed 30 points and 495 yards against Maryland, but some of that can be chalked up to miscommunication and angles when it came to tackling. The Terrapins came out using an unexpected tempo which got the defense off-balance from the jump and forced some of those miscues.
Granted the defense did settle in as the game proceeded, but that’s when the defensive busts in the backend occurred on the backs of mixed-up signals and miscommunication between players.
“We have to play better with what we’ve got,” Lesley said.
That’s not a condemnation of the unit, more a sign that Lesley believes in the potential of the group. The first game is filled with mistakes and the Mountaineers were certainly burned on some of those. Now, it is about showing that improvement from game one to game two and moving forward in the season.
This isn’t the unit that finished No. 4 nationally a season ago but it also doesn’t mean that what unfolded in the opener is a sign of what this group will eventually be either.
“It was a learning experience, got to be a humbling experience. We’re not the group from last year. To think that we are, we’re wrong, we’re not. We have to be who we are,” Lesley said.
Part of those struggles can be attributed to the fact that the Mountaineers only played a total of 19 players on the defensive side of the ball and three of those were under five snaps. That means that essentially 16 players were used over the course of a game that saw almost 90 defensive snaps.
It isn’t a stretch to say that after settling in the defensive unit was tired in large part because of those low player totals and the fact that the offense simply couldn’t stay on the field in the second half.
Some of that decision to only play a certain amount of players can be attributed to the sudden change situations that the unit found itself in with the Mountaineers having four turnovers and Lesley feeling as if he needed to stop the bleeding immediately.
“So, who do you want in the game? Your best players. We have to use the depth we have and there’s only one way t learn. They’ve got to play,” he said.
Establishing quality depth is going to be key going forward and the Mountaineers should have the opportunity to see what they’ve got up and down the roster against FCS level Long Island.
That means those snap counts should increase across the board for the second and third waves on the defensive side and allow opportunities that weren’t there on the road against a power five team.
This is going to be especially true up front where Dante Stills (93-percent of the snaps) and Taijh Alston (75-percent of the snaps) played far too much. The same can be said at the safety spots where Scottie Young missed one of the 81 snaps between the three players back there and that was due to injury.
“We’re going to play a lot of people this week. We’re going to play some people that didn’t play a week ago and we’re going to give our young guys plenty of opportunities to get out there and show that they’re capable of playing,” head coach Neal Brown said.
The Mountaineers have a starting point on defense and there is certainly excitement about where this group could eventually be this season but there’s a lot of work ahead. That begins Saturday.