As the season enters crunch time, West Virginia will be looking for those same freshmen who helped the team to a 6-3 record to perform their best when it matters most.
Traylon Ray, Rodney Gallagher, Jahiem White and Ben Cutter have made the most of their opportunities so far this season.
When looking back at the 2023 recruiting class, some would say Gallagher was the most highly-touted of the bunch as the sole four-star recruit, according to 247 Sports.
Gallagher saw immediate action, playing in the team’s first game against Penn State yet he did not show up in the box-score. Since then, he has seen a slightly increased role due to injuries.
The receiver from Uniontown, Pennsylvania has totaled 124 all-purpose yards, so far, this season. 43 receiving yards on five catches and 81 rushing yards on 13 attempts; He has not scored his first touchdown yet.
“Rodney is really good with the ball in his hands and after an offseason [and] he gets stronger and learns how to run routes he’s even going to be better,” West Virginia head coach Neal Brown said on Monday.
The other true freshman receiver Brown mentioned, Traylon Ray, has been a little bit more productive in the pass game and has shown flashes at times with his downfield speed.
Ray has caught 10 passes for 108 yards and one touchdown, which he scored against Houston.
“Traylon Ray, he’s doing all this and he played really well on Saturday (against BYU) and he didn’t even have a spring ball and he got here halfway through the summer and so, he’s going to be a special player here,” Brown said.
Ray the six-foot-three native of Tallahassee, can be a legitimate red zone threat for the Mountaineers in the near future with his big frame and refined ability to highpoint the ball.
The running back who made a splash is Jahiem White. In games before UCF, White saw just 77 rushing yards on 13 carries against FBS opponents. White has since made positive changes and found an increased role.
Against UCF, White had 85 rushing yards and a touchdown on nine attempts. Saturday against BYU, White added 146 yards on the ground on 16 carries.
“He’s so fast and he has that kind of speed of speed that can break contain,” running backs coach and offensive coordinator Chad Scott said of White.
White’s quick change of direction and blazing speed is the perfect compliment to fellow running back CJ Donaldson’s hard and powerful style of running.
On the defensive end of things, Ben Cutter has adjusted to the collegiate level very quickly, he enrolled early at WVU in January of this year.
Cutter has seen the field progressively more since the TCU game due to the unfortunate injury of redshirt-freshman linebacker Trey Lathan. Cutter possesses 35 tackles (19 solo), five tackles for loss, a pass breakup and most recently added his first sack on the season and in his career.
“That’s not our final goal. You know, we’re still in the running for a Big 12 championship game, so I think that’s our real goal here” Cutter said of West Virginia becoming bowl eligible after Saturday’s victory.
Brown also spoke about true freshmen Nick Krahe and Johnny Williams who add depth to an already stellar WVU OL, defensive lineman and walk-on that won defensive player of the week in DJ Cotton, quarterback Sean Boyle who was the scout team player of the week, linebacker Josiah Trotter who’d be playing if he was healthy Brown says, another linebacker who will be redshirting for physical maturity in James Heard Jr. and kicker from Fairmont, Nate Flower who won the juice award for this week.
The last true freshman mentioned by Brown was running back and special teamer DJ Oliver. “So, I got to make a decision. Yeah, he’s played four games right now and so we got to, I’ll meet with him (Oliver) later today and we got to figure that out, but he’s played he started on three units and he’s done that two weeks in a row,” Brown said, “He’s a really good football player. You know, he (Oliver) started both ways in high school and he’s physical.”
“We’ve got to do some things after the season to retain them, but that’s just the world we live in,” Brown said.
