In the last few games for the Mountaineers, the talk of the town has been the play of the defense as well as the play of linebacker Lee Kpogba.
Kpogba, a senior, has been one of the most physical in Jordan Lesley’s group, leading the team with 29 tackles. One of the most impressive areas for the Mountaineer defense has come on third down. On Saturday against Texas Tech, WVU held the red raiders to just two third down conversions on 18 attempts. West Virginia also leads the Big 12 in third down conversion rate.
“We worked really hard this offseason,” Kpogba said. “Just basically focusing on fundamentals and getting back to us, just trying to perfect the basic things. We’re working hard everyday and it’s translating to the game.”
When talking about some of the things that are helping the defense play better this year, Kpogba referenced last season, saying this group is hungrier compared to last year’s group.
“I would just say a lot of things as far as communication between the back end and up front. I would say we’re tackling better than last year, we’re playing harder,” Kpogba said. “I feel like we’re just more hungry this year considering we didn’t get the results we wanted last year and I feel like we didn’t play that well last year on defense and we just wanted to improve.”
Kpogba said that one of the main focuses for the offseason was the defense’s physicality. That term was a focal point for the Mountaineers since the offseason began and that has translated so far through four games.
That was one of the main focuses of this offseason, physicality. We worked pretty hard in camp, just thudding and tackling, everyday, and even continue to go hard in practice now, we’re not taking any days off so we emphasize physicality,” Kpogba said.
