Following West Virginia’s second scrimmage of the fall on Saturday, head coach Neal Brown had a lot of answers for who will and will not see the field week one against Penn State.
Brown had more answers for the offensive skill positions, including a pair of wide receivers and a running back who have performed well enough to play.
Wide receivers Rodney Gallagher and Traylon Ray, along with running back Jahiem White will all see playing time when WVU lines up against the Nittany Lions.
Brown has raved about Ray throughout fall camp, and has also been pleasantly surprised with Gallagher’s improvements as he was a late arrival to WVU. White has been on campus since January, taking advantage of spring ball and flashing in the spring game. All three, will be factors against Penn State, although their role remains unclear.
“They’ll both play,” Brown said of Gallagher and Ray.
Brown recognizes the youthfulness of both receivers, and is going to continue to monitor them physically and emotionally through the remainder of the fall and into the regular season.
“I know they’re both going to play. How many snaps, I’m not sure. They’re both going to play. As long as they can handle the load,” Brown said. “As long as they can handle the load from a physical and a mental standpoint and emotionally, then I think their playing time will continue to increase as we go.”
Both were also late arrivals to campus. Brown says he knows they have to get stronger, but the data from a health standpoint tend to show they are progressing in a good way and their bodies can handle the workload.
“Rodney’s got to get stronger, he knows that and so does Traylon. And they’re going to look drastically different a year from now because neither of them are early grads,” Brown said.
“I’m really pleased from a conditioning standpoint,” Brown added. “The thing I think 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 you see some reduction in speeds. We look at 90 percent efforts a lot and what you see is some young guys, especially guys that are not as strong as some of the older guys, what you see is their 90 percent efforts go down.
“Not because they’re loafing, but because they physically can’t run rep after rep as fast as possible. With those guys, it hasn’t shown which I think it speaks to their raw ability, raw athleticism. But I think to be determined on how much, but they will play.”
Brown was pretty short on his summary of White’s play, as White has been consistent since he arrived at WVU.
“Jahiem White continued to have a good camp and he’ll play this year,” Brown said.
White will join a stable of running backs that WVU uses including Jaylen Anderson, CJ Donaldson, and Justin Johnson.
