Aubrey Burks has been the talk of the Mountaineer defense all offseason.
The third year safety has been regarded as one of the best at his position in not only the Big 12, but also the whole country as Pro Football Focus ranked him as the seventh best returning safety in the country.
Last season, Burks made the Associated Press All Big-12 Second Team, starting in all 11 games and finishing with the second most tackles for WVU.
Burks has not only been talked about by other media outlets, but also his own teammates, some of them calling him the best ballhawk they have seen.
Earlier this week, Burks talked about how to approach playing a “blue blood” team such as the Penn State Nittany Lions, the Mountaineers week 1 matchup.
“Respect all and fear none,” said Burks. “I heard that as a kid so we respect who they are, great team, but we can’t fear them. Like coach Brown said, ‘we want to take the attack to them first,’ and one thing I’ve always heard since I started playing football is ‘he who hits first always wins’ so I feel like if we bring it first they’ll feel us and it’ll be a great game.”
Burks also spoke about how the Mountaineers are heavy underdogs in the upcoming game and how the team handles that.
“I don’t think it bothers us. We know our back is against the wall. I love it. Like coach Wright tells us ‘it’s always good when somebody doubts you, now you can go prove them wrong,’ so we know what we have to do to prove everybody wrong. Everybody in this facility only believes in us and that’s all we need, is for everybody in this facility to believe in us and if we have that then we should be okay for this year. As long as we stay together throughout the whole year, we’ll be just fine.”
When talking about the crowd for the game against Penn State, Burks did not shy away.
“First game last year versus Pitt I was hyped but nervous at the same time because I’m starting but my first start is versus Pitt, which is a big game. So now, playing Penn State in front of 100,000 I’m more keeping myself composed throughout the days go by. I’m just trying to keep my team composed too. We know what type of environment we’re going into so we can’t let that affect us as far as getting too hyped or just being afraid. Some guys have never seen 100,000 people in their life so walking in the stadium we might feel like we’re playing in the Super Bowl this weekend. Just trying to keep everybody composed will help.”
Burks and the Mountaineers will kick off the season Saturday in Happy Valley against the No. 7 ranked Penn State Nittany Lions. The game can be seen on NBC with kickoff set for 7:30.
