West Virginia football begins their preparation for the 2023 football season on Tuesday. The Mountaineers are heading into year five under head coach Neal Brown. Brown opened the 2023 campaign on Monday, talking about his expectations for spring ball, what he expects from a developmental standpoint, as well as injuries and other updates on the Mountaineers.
“We had a strong winter,” Brown said. “The infrastructure of our program is in a really good spot. And I think he’s as good as anybody in the business in his role in directing our strength and conditioning. Really focused on overall athleticism in the offseason and I’m pleased with where our guys are.”
“This is our first opportunity to get it fixed. We’re not trying to hide from last year not being good enough,” Brown said.
Objectives
Brown said he has objectives for the spring, and it starts with establishing an identity.
“Really what we want to do is we want to establish our identity and we’ve laid it out in four ways,” Brown said.
Brown said they want to be disciplined, to strain, be physical, and to be smart.
“When you talk about discipline, we got to get our alignments, our assignments. Got to be better conditioned. Second thing is strain, just playing with extreme effort. Third thing is physicality and that’s what we really got to work on this spring just from a blocking and tackling perspective. And the fourth thing is just smart. We put a focus on situational football and being better in certain situations.”
Goals for the Offense
Brown said for the offense, his team is excited about the multitude of staff changes. Brown promoted running backs coach Chad Scott to the offensive coordinator role this offseason. He also brought in Bilal Marshall as the wide receivers coach and Blaine Stewart as the tight ends coach.
“O-line wise, I think it’s about establishing depth this spring and then finding some position fits,” Brown said.
Brown added they are going to be versatile on the offensive line and the goal is to find the best five offensive lineman and then plug them into spots where they can succeed.
“At receiver, I think it’s about who’s going to be the guy. Who’s going to fill that role of being kind of that go-to guy,” Brown said. “Running back, it’s just. for that room to continue to grow. We’ve got to find ways to get multiple running backs on the field. We’ll do some of that in the spring.”
Goals for the Defense
On defense, Brown said the goal for his unit is to have a full understanding of the basics and then to try and start getting better on the defensive line, who lost multiple contributors since last season.
“On defense, it’s really about getting back to basics. Alignment and communication is going to be a focal point on that side of the ball,” Brown said. “Talking about the defensive line, we’ve got some newcomers up there and some guys that got to increase their role. We’re really going to really push them. I think that everything defensively starts up front then moves backwards. We’ve got to be able to establish the line of scrimmage and we’ve done that in the past, didn’t do as good of a job of it as last year.”
Injuries
- Jalen Thornton- LIMITED
- Zeiqui Lawton- OUT
- Asani Redwood- OUT
- CJ Donaldson- LIMITED, will practice
- Zach Frazier- LIMITED, will practice (won’t participate in most 11 on 11)
- Davis Mallinger- OUT
