As Trey Lathan was carted off the field, there were two problems. The short term and the long term.
The short term problem was solved as the Mountaineers hung on to beat TCU on Saturday, but the long term issue is how they go about replacing Lathan.
Lathan suffered a serious leg injury on Saturday, needing an air cast and cart. Lathan would return to Morgantown on Tuesday, following a successful surgery this weekend in Fort Worth.
“Trey had successful surgery yesterday. He’s going to miss the year but he’s expected to make a full recovery,” head coach Neal Brown said on Monday.
Lathan had been really good for the Mountaineers in his redshirt-freshman season. This season he has 27.0 total tackles which ranks third-best on the team. He also has seven quarterback hits, a forced fumble, and a TFL.
West Virginia has a couple options as far as replacing Lathan. The first is Ben Cutter. Cutter played a total of 46 snaps against TCU, an increased role for the true freshman.
“Cutter did some good things in the game now,” Brown said. “Especially on kickoff and he played a good number of snaps on defense. He’s played a good number of snaps the last couple of weeks. He’s ready to do it. He’s a true freshman but he’ll be ready. He’s physical, he’s smart. He’ll be ready.”
Outside of Cutter, Brown is going to turn to Jairo Faverus and Caden Biser as pieces to help add depth. This is the second long-term injury suffered by a Mountaineer linebacker with freshman Josiah Trotter also suffering a season-ending injury in the spring.
“Ben Cutter, he’s a guy that’s going to need to step up for sure. Jai Faverus, Caden Biser, those are going to be the guys. When I talked to (defensive coordinator) Jordan (Lesley) and we talked to (inside linebackers coach) Jeff (Koonz), those are the guys,” Brown said.
